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https://hackaday.com/2022/05/22/receive-virtual-postcards-on-this-beautiful-e-ink-photo-frame/ | Receive Virtual Postcards On This Beautiful E-Ink Photo Frame | Robin Kearey | [
"home hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"custom PCB",
"e-ink",
"e-paper",
"ESP32",
"USB C"
] | Sending postcards to loved ones used to be standard procedure for travelers back when travel was glamorous and communications were slow. While some travelers still keep this tradition alive, many have replaced stamps and post offices with instant messaging and social media — faster and more convenient, but a lot less special than receiving a postcard with a handwritten message from a faraway land.
[Cameron] designed
a postcard picture frame that aims to bring back a bit of that magic
. It’s a wooden frame that holds an e-ink display, which shows pictures sent to it by your friends. All they need to do is open the unique link that you sent them beforehand and upload an interesting photo; the picture frame will cycle through the submissions based on an adjustable schedule. A web interface allows you to change settings and delete any inappropriate images.
The wooden frame is beautifully made, but the sleek black PCB inside is an true work of art. It holds a battery and a USB-C charging circuit, as well as an ESP32 that connects to WiFi, stores images and downscales them to the 800×480 monochrome format used by the display. [Cameron] has not accurately measured the current consumption, but estimates that it should work for about one year on a single charge thanks to the extremely low power requirements of e-ink displays.
Having your friends decide on the images shown in your house is an interesting idea, if you can trust them to keep it decent. If you like to have more control over your e-ink display, have a look at
this solar-powered model
or
this wall-mounted newspaper display
. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476747",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2022-05-22T14:28:44",
"content": "How many days before you start getting? …https://theawesomedaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/carmeme2-750×593.png",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment... | 1,760,372,687.626571 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/22/bi-color-filament-kicks-3d-printed-optical-illusions-up-a-notch/ | Bi-Color Filament Kicks 3D Printed Optical Illusions Up A Notch | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"ambiguous shapes",
"bicolor PLA",
"illusion"
] | A new video from
[Make Anything] shows off a nice combo
that has a real visual impact: ambiguous shapes that look different depending on what angle they are viewed at, combined with an unusual filament that enhances the effect greatly. As you can see in the image above that shows off just such an object in front of a mirror, the results are pretty striking.
Japanese mathematician and artist [Kokichi Sugihara] figured out the math behind such objects, of which his
ambiguous cylinder illusion
is probably the most well-known. That inspired [Make Anything] to create his own strange objects, which he showcases happily. He adds one more twist, however.
This filament is split right down the middle in two colors.
What is a natural complement to an object that looks different based on the direction from which it is viewed? A filament whose color depends on what direction it is viewed, of course! The filament in question is MatterHackers Quantum dual-color PLA, and this unusual filament is split right down the middle in two different colors, resulting in a printed object whose exact color depends entirely on the viewing angle, and the object geometry.
The resulting objects look especially striking when demonstrated with the help of a mirror, because as the object turns and changes, so does the color change as well. You can watch it all in action in the video below (embedded after the page break) which showcases quite a few different takes on the concept, so check it out to see them all.
3D printing has certainly opened up a new doors when it comes to brain-bending optical effects, like this
hypnotic Moiré pattern
, and perhaps dual-color filament can enhance those as well. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476717",
"author": "Hitomi",
"timestamp": "2022-05-22T12:14:02",
"content": "I actually enjoyed this, wonder how good it looks in real life, but the effect is very impressive in a video recording. Got me some M.C. Escher vibes.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,372,686.957862 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/22/smart-contact-lenses-put-you-up-close-to-the-screen/ | Smart Contact Lenses Put You Up Close To The Screen | Al Williams | [
"LED Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"augmented reality",
"contact lens"
] | Google Glass didn’t take off as expected, but — be honest — do you really want to walk around with that hardware on your head? The
BBC recently covered Mojo
, a company developing
smart contact lenses
that not only correct vision but can show a display. You can see a video from CNET on the technology below.
The lenses have microLED displays, smart sensors, and solid-state batteries similar to those found in pacemakers. The company claims to have a “feature-complete prototype” and are going to start testing, according to the BBC article. We imagine you can’t get much of a battery crammed into a contact lens, but presumably, that’s one of the things that makes it so difficult to develop this sort of tech.
The article mentions other smart contacts under development, too, including a University of Surrey lens that can monitor eye health using various sensors integrated into the lens. You have to wonder how this would be in real life. Presumably, the display turns off and you see nothing, but it is annoying enough having your phone beep constantly without getting messages across your field of vision all the time.
It seems like this is a technology that will come, of course. If not this time, then sometime in the future. While we usually think the hacker community should lead the way, we aren’t sure we want to hack on something that touches people’s eyeballs. Not
everyone can say that
, though. For us, we’ll stick with
headsets
. | 45 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476693",
"author": "Saabman",
"timestamp": "2022-05-22T08:53:05",
"content": "With the limited battery capacity I think it would be something like “blink and you’ll miss it “",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6476731",
... | 1,760,372,687.493048 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/21/vr-spectrum-analyzer/ | VR Spectrum Analyzer | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"RTLSDR",
"sdr",
"software define radio",
"virtual reality",
"vr"
] | At one point or another, we’ve probably all wished we had a VR headset that would allow us to fly around our designs. While not quite the same, thing, [manahiyo831] has something that might even be better: a
VR spectrum analyzer
. You can get an idea of what it looks like in the video below, although that is actually from an earlier version.
The video shows a remote PC using an RTL dongle to pick up signals. The newer version runs on the Quest 2 headset, so you can simply attach the dongle to the headset. Sure, you’d look like a space cadet with this on, but — honestly — if you are willing to be seen in the headset, it isn’t that much more hardware.
What we’d really like to see, though, is a directional antenna so you could see the signals in the direction you were looking. Now that would be something. As it is, this is undeniably cool, but we aren’t sure what its real utility is.
What other VR test gear would you like to see? A
Tron
-like logic analyzer? A function generator that lets you draw waveforms in the air? A headset oscilloscope? Or maybe just a giant workbench in VR?
A spectrum analyzer is
a natural project for an SDR
. Or
things that have SDRs in them
. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476674",
"author": "tiopepe123",
"timestamp": "2022-05-22T06:51:00",
"content": "or 2 X SDR and 2X PCB log antennaand diferencial spectrum",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6476724",
"author": "Mark Walter",
"t... | 1,760,372,687.053973 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/21/building-your-own-8088-xt-motherboard/ | Building Your Own 8088 XT Motherboard | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"8088",
"motherboard",
"PC-XT"
] | There was a time when an XT-class motherboard — like the old IBM PC with an 8088 CPU — was a high-tech accomplishment. Now, something like that is easily within reach of the average hobby lab.
[Homebrew8088] did it
, and it looks surprisingly simple, especially compared to what passes for a motherboard these days.
The board will take an 8088 or one of the NEC chips and by default sports 512 K of RAM, a few ISA slots, a PC speaker, a USB hard drive, and a PS/2 keyboard connector. The board will fit in an ATX case. Not bad. You can see a video of the board below.
In fact, the channel has a lot of related videos and the main site has many interesting topics, like driving an 8088 or 8086
from a Raspberry Pi
. The
GitHub
site has design files for KiCad along with a lot of other information. Some of this will be interesting even if you are just trying to repair an old motherboard or would like to design a new ISA card.
If you want to know why the PC used an 8088 instead of an 8086,
we just covered that
. What are you going to do with an old XT computer?
How about IRC
? | 47 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476645",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2022-05-22T02:22:18",
"content": "Username checks out.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6476646",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-05-22T02:47... | 1,760,372,687.14443 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/21/voyager-1-talks-some-nonsense-but-is-still-working/ | Voyager 1Talks Some Nonsense, But Is Still Working | Jenny List | [
"News",
"Space"
] | [
"space probe",
"telemetry",
"voyager"
] | The
Voyager 1
interplanetary probe was launched in 1977 and has now reached interstellar space where it is the furthest-traveled man-made object. It’s hugely exceeded its original mission and continues to return valuable scientific data, but there’s an apparent fault which is leaving its controllers perplexed. Onboard is an attitude control system which keeps the craft’s antennas pointing at Earth, and while it evidently still works (as we’re still in touch with the probe) and other systems are fine,
it’s started returning incomprehensible data
. Apparently it’s developed a habit of reporting random data, or states the antenna can’t possibly be in.
That a 45 year old computer is still working at all is testament to the skills of its designers, and at 14.5 billion miles away a repair is impossible however much we’d be fascinated to know about the failure modes of old electronics in space. It’s postulated that they might simply live with the fault if the system is still working, issue a software fix, or find some way to use one of the craft’s redundant systems to avoid the problem. Meanwhile we can rest easily in our beds, because we’re still a couple of centuries away from
its return as a giant alien sentient machine
.
We’ve featured the
Voyager
program a few times before here at Hackaday, not least
when we took a close look at one of its instruments
.
Thanks [Jon Woodcock] for the tip. | 37 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476621",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2022-05-21T23:03:22",
"content": "Depending on which Voyager craft it is, it could also be the one that was blown up by a couple of really bored Klingons.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id"... | 1,760,372,687.566512 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/20/rip-john-birkett-parts-vendor-extraordinaire/ | RIP John Birkett, Parts Vendor Extraordinaire | Jenny List | [
"hardware"
] | [
"electronic surplus",
"parts",
"surplus"
] | It is with sadness that we note
the passing of John Birkett
, proprietor of the
legendary eponymous surplus radio and electronics store
on an unassuming street in the British city of Lincoln, at the age of 93. He has been a fantastic source of esoteric parts and electronic assemblies for many decades, and though many of you from beyond where this is being written may never have heard of him the chances are that if you follow electronics enthusiasts from the UK you will have unwittingly seen parts which passed through his hands.
Gateway to a world of wonders: a typical Birkett advert from 1986.
There was a time when surplus stores were a relatively common sight, given their window of opportunity by the huge quantity of post-war and Cold War military gear at knock-down prices. My town had one when I was a kid, but though it sold its share of electronic goodies it was more of a place for sturdy olive green outdoor wear or all the 1930s British military uniform items you might ever need. J. Birkett was different, as a purely electronics store the shop rapidly became the go-to place for both the most necessary and the most unexpected of parts.
His motto was “Not a piece of junk in sight”, and though as with much surplus equipment there is plenty of junk to be found it was his eye in managing to stock the junk which was most interesting and useful that made his selection special. Such was its reach that most of his customers including me never made it to Lincoln and the store itself, instead we came to him through his mail-order business and attendance at radio rallies. I fondly remember the anticipation of receiving a Birkett parcel, and I still have plenty of parts that came from him. An FM tuner converted for use as a 2 meter receiver is still in a box somewhere, and I’m pretty certain my storage unit still holds a pair of Pye Cambridge VHF transceivers he supplied.
According to Google
the shop remains open
, and we hope that state of affairs will continue.
Surplus may not be what it once was
, but we thank John Birkett for what he gave to generations of British hardware hackers. May he rest in peace.
Header image: Oliver Mills,
(CC BY-SA 2.0)
. | 55 | 35 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476171",
"author": "Ian H",
"timestamp": "2022-05-20T08:42:53",
"content": "Whilst I only visited Birkett’s once (on holiday with my family) back in the mid 1980’s my own home town of Cardiff, South Wales in the U.K. had a similar shop – Charlie Marks in the Wyndham Arcade. Whilst ... | 1,760,372,687.40841 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/19/pcb-linear-motors-for-model-trains/ | PCB Linear Motors For Model Trains | Anne Ogborn | [
"Misc Hacks",
"News",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"linear motor",
"model railroad",
"model raiway"
] | Modeling a railroad is hard. Railroads are large, linear pieces of civil engineering. So many modelers are drawn to the smallest scale they can use. Recently a new scale, named T, at 1:450 has been pushing this barrier. But fitting a reliable mechanical drive mechanism and MCU board in a package this size is a challenge. In practice, even more of a problem is getting reliable electrical contact through a metal wheel on metal track (about the worst possible design for a contact).
T always seemed to us a long way out on the bleeding edge. But all that may have changed. In
a recent Hackaday.io writeup
, author [Martin] describes a PCB technology based linear motor system to externally drive T scale locomotives.
The system uses 4mm planar coils. The underside of the PCB has another coil, so the effective pitch is 2mm. With microstepping, a step of 0.25mm is possible, and trains run smoothly. Current is 3-400mA.
Since the system also guides the car, actual ‘track’ is unnecessary, and [Martin] is using printed paper covering rather than 3D track. Items like autos and boats can be automated as well. Modelers in larger scales might well use it for automated pedestrians and such.
Also an advantage, all cars are powered, so coupler reliability is a reduced issue.
This feels like it could be used for many things, far beyond model railroads. It’s an option for any time you need to move a few mm scale object in 2D.
Image courtesy David K. Smith, CC BY-SA 3.0 | 34 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476136",
"author": "Ghent+the+Slicer",
"timestamp": "2022-05-20T05:21:04",
"content": "Kudos, this is really cool.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6638484",
"author": "Rob",
"timestamp": "2023-05-03T06:50:16",... | 1,760,372,687.229087 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/19/scotts-cpu-from-the-bottom-up/ | Scott’s CPU From The Bottom Up | Al Williams | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"cpu",
"custom cpu",
"digital logic"
] | It isn’t for everyone, but if you work much with computers at a low level, you’ll probably sooner or later entertain the idea of creating your own CPU. There was a time when that was a giant undertaking, but with today’s tools and FPGAs it is… well, not easy, but certainly easier. If you have the urge to try your own, you might have a look at [Simply Explained’s] video series called “
Building Scott’s CPU.
”
The 11 videos cover everything from basic transistor logic to sequential circuits and moves on to things like ALUs, clock units, and how jump instructions work.
We are guessing there are some more videos forthcoming. However, these 11 videos are over two hours of content and that’s a lot to get you started. Of course, everyone who does this usually focuses on one type of architecture by necessity but there are many ways you can design a CPU. Many homebrew designs are simple multiple clock per instructions designs. A few use pipelining to get an instruction per clock once the pipeline fills up. Modern CPUs do lots of tricks to actually execute, on average, multiple instructions per clock cycle, but that complicates a lot of things.
Then there are the non-traditional architectures like single-instruction computers or asynchronous CPUs. The point is, once you know how a basic CPU works, there is still plenty of room to innovate in your own design.
We’ve been through this exercise more than once and — in our opinion — the hardest part isn’t creating the CPU. It is
building all the ancillary tools
you need to do anything useful. There are some
hacks to make that easier
. On the other hand, it is possible to do
everything from A to Z
. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476139",
"author": "Marvin",
"timestamp": "2022-05-20T05:44:02",
"content": "Another excellent series on the topic by Ben Eater:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyznrdDSSGM&list=PLowKtXNTBypGqImE405J2565dvjafglHU",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,686.913733 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/19/flexible-grip-for-hammer-made-with-3d-printing-pen/ | Flexible Grip For Hammer Made With 3D Printing Pen | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"flexible grip",
"grip",
"tool grip",
"tools"
] | When it comes to putting a flexible grip on a tool, you might reach for a self-fusing silicone tape or other similar product. However, [Potent Printables] has discovered you can easily create a flexible grip
using a 3D-printing pen and some flex filament.
In this case, a hammer first gets a layer of blue painters tape wrapped around its wooden handle. This serves as a base layer to promote good adhesion. A simple paper template was then printed as a guide for creating the graphics on the flexible grip. Flexible filament was fed through the 3D pen, with the red and black details of the graphics printed first. Then, white flex filament was used to make the rest of the flexible grip. A wood burning tool was then used to smooth out the first layer of flex filament, before a second layer was added on top.
The result is a flexible white grip on the hammer which is stuck fast, likely due to shrinkage as the plastic cooled after printing. We’ve seen some other creative grips
made with 3D printing before, too
. Video after the break.
[Thanks to Keith Olson for the tip!] | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476040",
"author": "scott.tx",
"timestamp": "2022-05-19T23:49:09",
"content": "shoot, some people are just trying to make the rest of us look bad.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6476081",
"author": "Josiah Gould",
"tim... | 1,760,372,687.011574 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/19/opencv-running-on-tiny-microcontroller/ | OpenCV Running On A Tiny Microcontroller | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"computer vision",
"dowdq6",
"edge detection",
"ESP32",
"memory",
"opencv",
"size"
] | At first blush, it might seem like projects that make extensive use of computer vision or machine learning would need to be based on powerful computing platforms with plenty of clock cycles and memory to handle this type of application. While there is some truth to this, as the field progresses it becomes possible to experiment with these tools on low-power devices as well.
Take this OpenCV project which is built entirely on an ESP32 for example
.
With that being said, there are some modifications that need to be made to the ESP32 in order to use OpenCV in any meaningful way. The most important of these is the use of the ESP32-DOWDQ6 module which increases the available memory of the ESP32 to allow it to make better use of camera functions. Even then, the ESP32 can’t run the entire OpenCV application, so a shrunken version of OpenCV is required before the device can run it natively. Once those two obstacles are out of the way, though, doing things like edge detection, as this project demonstrates, are well in the realm of possibility.
If running OpenCV on something as small as an ESP32 is possible, it is even easier to run on something orders of magnitude more powerful and yet still inexpensive, such as the Raspberry Pi. While the project’s code is available on
its GitHub page
for those interested, there are plenty of other OpenCV projects that we have featured on more powerful platforms as well, like
this clock which falls off of the wall whenever someone looks at it
.
Thanks to [ninjan33r] for the tip! | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475976",
"author": "irox",
"timestamp": "2022-05-19T20:48:54",
"content": "On a side note, there is also OpenMV doing machine vision on small embedded boards. They have there own hardware, but there was talk of porting/supporting OpenMV on ESP32 (a few years ago, not sure if that ... | 1,760,372,687.675578 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/19/hacking-the-logitech-z906-speaker-system/ | Hacking The Logitech Z906 Speaker System | Lewin Day | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"Arduino Library",
"logitech",
"logitech z906"
] | The Logitech Z906 is a well-rounded 5.1 surround sound system. It’s capable of putting out 1000W in peak power, and can decode Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks as you’d expect. It’s intended to be used as the heart of a home cinema system and used with a central command console. However, [zarpli] figured out the device’s serial secrets
and can now run the device in a standalone manner.
As it turns out, the Z906 uses a main control console that speaks to the rest of the hardware over a DE15 connector (also known as the DB-15). [zarpli] realized that the hardware could instead be commanded by just about any device with a serial port. Thus, a library was whipped up that can be readily used with an Arduino to control all the major functions of the Z906. Everything from volume levels to effect modes and channel assignments can be commanded by microcontroller. As a finale, [zarpli] shows off the hardware playing a multi-channel composition
without the console connected,
with his own hardware running the show instead.
If you’ve got a Logitech Z906 or similar unit that you wish to automate, you might find this work useful. It’s also a good inspiration for anyone contemplating hacking away
at the console ports on other hardware.
Video after the break. | 43 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475897",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2022-05-19T17:09:21",
"content": "*hyper cringe* you really just quoted the peak power like it’s a number that matters?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6475901",
"autho... | 1,760,372,687.884459 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/19/put-a-new-spin-on-your-3d-printed-parts/ | Put A New Spin On Your 3D Printed Parts | Al Williams | [
"Parts"
] | [
"animated",
"motorized",
"rotation"
] | Once you get tired of printing keychains and earbud holders with your 3D printer, you’ll want to design things a bit more sophisticated. How about things that rotate? [3DSage] has a good how-to about
how to integrate a simple motor and controller
into a few different size boxes. Combined with some 3D printed linkages, these boxes can turn your project — printed or otherwise — into something that spins.
To demonstrate, he created a few cat toys, played with an idea for a magic trick, and refit a selfie light into… something. We have no doubt you can find something to do with these little motor modules. The boxes vary mostly in how big the battery packs are. There are also several interesting side pieces like a 3D holder for rechargeable button cells and their charger.
In addition, he also demonstrates how to use the motor as a (rather poor) generator. Attaching a water wheel wasn’t a success until he used compressed air to run the wheel. You would have thought water would have done the trick.
The video stresses that you should solder connections, but you don’t have to. Honestly, we think if you are building moving stuff with a 3D printer, you should probably just go ahead and learn to solder. It isn’t that hard and there are plenty of reasons to learn.
Of course, you could
3D print the motor itself
.
Adapting motor modules for different uses
isn’t a new idea, of course, but it is always great to see more ways to apply basic components. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475808",
"author": "Doug Leppard",
"timestamp": "2022-05-19T14:35:10",
"content": "thanks for your work and making it available.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6476075",
"author": "Nicholas Anthony Stanton",
"timestamp... | 1,760,372,687.801049 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/20/sound-generation-board-makes-the-tunes/ | Sound Generation Board Makes The Tunes | Al Williams | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"chiptune",
"microchip",
"pic"
] | [Mcjack123] has been getting into chiptunes lately and realized that his original interest started in 2018 when he used an Arduino to turn a TI-84 calculator into a sound machine. His latest iteration is a custom-designed soundboard and he
takes us through the design and construction of it
in a recent post.
The work models classic sound generators like the 2A03 or the Commodore 64 SID. You have a bunch of simple waveform generators along with filters and modulators to make various effects. These boards eventually gave way to FM synthesis devices like the Yamaha OPL2 and OPL3 chips. All of these cards accepted commands and generated audio on their own. More modern boards are more likely to simply convert digital data from the computer into audio.
The first attempt was with a Raspberry Pi Pico. It worked to some degree, but the code was too slow to run many channels at once. The processor itself is pretty fast, so there may have been a way to get there, but instead, he decided to go down a different route.
The final product used multiple PIC chips as generators and some analog circuitry to mix it together. To get the timing just right, the PICs use
assembly language
. A fun project if you enjoy chiptunes.
We see a lot of
fun chiptune projects
. Some of them are
quite tiny
. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476753",
"author": "John E Price",
"timestamp": "2022-05-22T14:51:53",
"content": "Amazing!!! I’ll say it again… The hardest thing about Arduino platform is trying to figure out the next killer project!! Awesome work!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,687.715712 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/20/hamvention-2022-the-reunion-begins-today/ | Hamvention 2022: The Reunion Begins Today | Kristina Panos | [
"cons",
"News"
] | [
"ham radio",
"hamfest",
"hamvention"
] | Calling all hams!
Hamvention 2022
is underway and runs through the weekend at
the Greene County Fair and Expo Center
in Xenia, Ohio. It’s been three long years since Hamvention took place in person, and this year marks the 70th reunion of what has got to be the largest hamfest in the Midwest. If you’re in the area, you don’t want to miss it. You will need a ticket, though, and
here are a few places you pick one up
.
Indoors, you’ll find six buildings full of
commercial vendors
. But outside is where the real fun takes place — the flea market. What treasures will you uncover? There’s only one way to find out.
If you want to get into ham radio, there’s no place like a ham fest to kick off your journey. And if you’ve been poring over the ARRL handbook, you’re in luck, because they’re proctoring ham exams for free at the church across the street on Friday and Saturday.
Can’t make it out for whatever reason, but live close to the fairgrounds? Want to get in the mood on your way there? Tune to 1620AM within a five-ish mile radius to hear weather, traffic, and parking info, plus interviews and other assorted radio fun. If you live nowhere near Ohio, don’t despair —
they are livestreaming it on YouTube
.
[Note:
the Hara Arena
, pictured in our awesome Joe Kim artwork, is the old home of Hamvention, and was demolished in 2016. Better head off to the Greene County Fairgrounds instead.] | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476427",
"author": "Myself",
"timestamp": "2022-05-20T21:41:11",
"content": "I’m not attending this year, but I’m SO GLAD they moved to the Greene County fairgrounds. The parking was a mud-pit the year I went, but everything else about it is so much better. The bathrooms work, the ... | 1,760,372,687.760593 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/20/square-cuts-on-aluminum-extrusion-no-mill-required/ | Square Cuts On Aluminum Extrusion, No Mill Required | Dan Maloney | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"aluminum",
"cnc",
"endmill",
"extrusion",
"jig",
"Machine tool",
"router",
"squaring"
] | If you’re looking for the perfect excuse to buy that big, beautiful Bridgeport mill, we’ve got some bad news: it’s not going to be making perfectly square end cuts on aluminum extrusion. Sadly, it’s much more cost-effective to build
this DIY squaring jig
, and search for your tool justification elsewhere.
There’s no doubting the utility of aluminum extrusion in both prototyping and production builds, nor that the versatile structural members often add a bit of class to projects. But without square cuts, any frames built from them can be seriously out of whack, leading to misery and frustration down the road. [Midwest Cyberpunk]’s mill-less solution uses a cheap Harbor Freight router as a spindle for a carbide endmill, riding on a laser-cut acrylic baseplate fitted with wheels that ride in the V-groove of — you guessed it — aluminum extrusions. A fence and clamping system holds the extrusion firmly, and once trammed in, the jig quickly and easily squares extrusions that have been rough cut with a miter saw, angle grinder, or even a hacksaw. Check out the video below for a peek at the build details.
We love the simplicity and utility of this jig, but can see a couple of areas for improvement. Adding some
quick-throw toggle clamps
would be a nice touch, as would extending the MDF bed and fence a bit for longer cuts. But even as it is, this tool gets the job done, and doesn’t break the bank like a mill purchase might. Still, if your heart is set on a mill,
who are we to stand in the way? | 53 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476317",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2022-05-20T17:24:24",
"content": "Apropos of nothing, why won’t my bridgeport mill make square end cuts in aluminum extrusion?I didn’t view the full video – is that explained somewhere? I’d really like to know the explanation behind the st... | 1,760,372,688.252701 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/20/ep-169-3d-print-vase-mode-engage-measuring-nanovolts-through-mega-diy-and-the-softest-pants-are-software-pants/ | Hackaday Podcast 169: 3D Printing In Vase Mode, Measuring Nanovolts Through Mega DIY, And The Softest Pants Are Software Pants | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos as we take a tour of our top hacks from the past week. Elliot brought some fairly nerdy fare to the table this time, and Kristina pines for physical media as we discuss the demise of the iPod Touch, the last fruit-flavored mp3-playing soldier to fall.
But first, we talk about a why-didn’t-I-think-of-that 3D printing hack that leverages vase mode into something structural. We’ll take a look inside a see-through cyberdeck made from laptop parts, marvel over the minuscule voltages that can be picked up with a bit of meticulous meter design, and chew the fat about old rotary phones.
We also put in some overtime discussing a cheap fix for an expensive time card clock part, and rock out to a guitar that can use various things for its resonant cavity. Finally, Elliot questions the difference between software and firmware when it comes to hiding your dirty secrets, and Kristina bloviates about see-through electronics and music appreciation using whatever format you can afford.
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments below!
Direct Download link
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 169 Show Notes:
News This Week:
Supermassive Black Hole Sagittarius A*
MakerBot And Ultimaker To Merge, Focus On Industry
The MakerBot Obituary
What’s that Sound?
Last week’s sound was a C64 Datasette loading up a long-forgotten game. Congrats to [JollyTaper] for guessing right and getting lucky! Tune in next week for your shot.
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
3D Printing Hack Leverages Vase Mode Structurally
Hackaday Prize 2022: Vintagephone Links The Past To The Present (and Future)
Getting Old Rotary Phone To Ring (Arduino project) – YouTube
Two-Way Ringdown Circuit
Nanovolt Meter Requires Careful Design For Accuracy’s Sake
Why Get Dressed When There Are Software Pants?
When Hams Helped Polar Researchers Come In From The Cold
Transparent Framedeck Is Clearly Capable
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Gaming Mouse Becomes Digital Camera
Color(ing) Computer Needs No Batteries
MiniDisc Player Supports Full Data Transfer
Kristina’s Picks:
Printable Fix For Time Card Clock Has Owner Seeing Red Again
Balloon Guitar Is An Absolute Gas, Helium Or Not
Making A Concrete Pinhole Camera
Can’t-Miss Articles:
NVIDIA Releases Drivers With Openness Flavor
Silence Of The IPods: Reflecting On The Ever-Shifting Landscape Of Personal Media Consumption
Raspberry Pi Zero Powers Spotify Streaming IPod
Rockbox — Free Music Player Firmware | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476975",
"author": "Jim",
"timestamp": "2022-05-23T11:10:10",
"content": "The cheapest easy way to create an in home intercom system with old phones it to use an analog telephone adapter (ATA)like the Obi202. They can be set up to automatically ring the other phone or you could gi... | 1,760,372,688.113128 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/20/slow-races-on-a-pinewood-derby-track-built-from-scratch/ | Slow Races On A Pinewood Derby Track Built From Scratch | Lewin Day | [
"classic hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"derby",
"pinewood derby",
"slow race"
] | Pinewood derby racing is a popular pastime for scouting groups and many others besides. [Mr Coster] whipped up his own track with the assistance of some 3D printed parts, and used it to run a competition
with a fun twist on the usual theme.
The track starts with a pair of MDF panels, on to which some strips are placed to act as guides for the racers. There’s also a release mechanism built with hinges and a pair of dowels that ensures both racers start the competition at exactly the same time. To give the track a nice transition from the downward slope to the horizontal, a series of curved transition pieces were designed in Fusion 360, 3D printed, and added to the course.
As for the competition, [Mr Coster] decided to eschew the usual focus on outright speed. Instead, students were charged with building the
slowest possible car
that could still complete the course. Just for the fun of it, though, the kids were then given one day to modify their slowest cars to compete
in a more typical fastest-wins event.
It gives the students a great lesson in optimizing for different performance parameters.
You might be old-school, though, and want to ruin the fun by taking it all way too seriously. Those competitors may wish to consider some of the
advanced equipment
we’ve featured before. Alternatively, you could run a no-holds-barred
cheater’s version of the contest
. Video after the break.
Last day of building/testing before race day tomorrow. Students were tasked with designing the SLOWEST car able to complete the race. Love seeing the excitement & hearing the laughter while the kids worked through the engineering design process! 💛🖤🏎💛🖤
#WeareCedarGrove
pic.twitter.com/gmNoJ18C7E
— MrCosterTeachesMath (@CosterMath)
May 5, 2022
Awesome way to end the week in Engineering 1. Students were given one day to modify their cars from the slowest racers to the fastest. The kids were absolutely tremendous and with their help we ran 70+ races each class period! 💛🖤🏎💛🖤
#WeAreCedarGrove
pic.twitter.com/Bw6mc52tl1
— MrCosterTeachesMath (@CosterMath)
May 15, 2022 | 18 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476276",
"author": "psuedonymous",
"timestamp": "2022-05-20T15:06:35",
"content": "With foreknowledge of the criteria (perform slowest without halting, then fastest with modification but not replacement): you need a system with extreme damping but as minimal friction as possible. A... | 1,760,372,688.170718 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/20/this-week-in-security-iphone-unpowered-python-unsandboxed-and-wizard-spider-unmasked/ | This Week In Security: IPhone Unpowered, Python Unsandboxed, And Wizard Spider Unmasked | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"python",
"This Week in Security",
"WizardSpider"
] | As conspiracy theories go, one of the more plausible is that a cell phone could be running malicious firmware on its baseband processor, and be listening and transmitting data even when powered off. Nowadays, this sort of behavior is called a feature, at least if your phone is made by Apple, with their Find My functionality. Even with the phone off, the Bluetooth chip runs happily in a low-power state, making these features work. The problem is that this chip doesn’t do signed firmware. All it takes is
root-level access to the phone’s primary OS to load a potentially malicious firmware
image to the Bluetooth chip.
Researchers at TU Darmstadt in Germany demonstrated the approach,
writing up a great paper on their work (PDF)
. There are a few really interesting possibilities this research suggests. The simplest is hijacking Apple’s Find My system to track someone with a powered down phone. The greater danger is that this could be used to keep surveillance malware on a device even through power cycles. Devices tend to be secured reasonably well against attacks from the outside network, and hardly at all from attacks originating on the chips themselves. Unfortunately, since unsigned firmware is a hardware limitation, a security update can’t do much to mitigate this, other than the normal efforts to prevent attackers compromising the OS.
Bluetooth Low Energy
It’s yet another Bluetooth related problem, this time concerning
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) used as an authentication token
. You’ve probably seen this idea in one form or another, like the Android option to remain unlocked whenever connected to your BLE earbuds. It’s used for various vehicles, to unlock once the appropriate phone is within BLE range.
It’s always been sort-of a bad idea to use BLE for this sort of authentication, because BLE is succeptible to in-flight relay attacks. One half of the attack is next to your phone, acting like the car’s BLE chip, and the other is next to the car, spoofing your phone. Connect the two spoofing devices, and the car thinks the authorized phone is right there. To make this “secure”, vendors have added encryption features, as well as signal timing analysis to try to catch spoofing.
The real innovation in the hack here is to use dedicated hardware that is sniffing and replaying at the link layer. This avoids the encryption problem, as the signal is just passed on unmolested. It also speeds up the process enough that latencies are low enough even over the internet hundreds of miles away. It’s likely that the next iteration of this technique could simply use Software Defined Radios to replay the signals at an even lower level. The solution is to either prompt the user for authorization before unlocking the vehicle, or embedding location information in the encrypted payload.
Python Buffer Blown
This is
one of those issues that isn’t a big deal, and yet could be
a problem in certain situations. It all started in 2012, when it was observed that the Python
memoryview
object could crash a program when it pointed to a memory location that is no longer valid. A
memoryview
is essentially a pointer to the underlying C buffer, and doesn’t get quite the same automatic reference counting as a normal Python object. De-allocate the object the
memoryview
points at, then dereference this “pointer” for some C-style undefined behavior. (Here we don’t mean cursed code, but more garden variety UD — dereferencing a pointer that’s no longer a valid pointer.) A bit of memory manipulation can pretty much control what the raw pointer value will be, and setting it NULL predictably crashes the interpreter.
This is actually a read and write primitive. Snoop around Python’s memory, find the ELF headers, and then figure out where the glibc
system
dynamic library is sitting in the procedure linkage table. Find it, use the memory corruption bug to jump to the appropriate location in memory, and boom, you’ve popped a shell from Python!
The more astute among you are surely already thinking, gee, that’s a convoluted way to call
os.system()
. And yes, as an exploit,
it’s quite unimpressive
. [kn32], our tour guide into this quirk of Python points out that it could be used to escape a Python sandbox, but that is a very niche use-case. Even if we conclude that this isn’t really an exploit, it’s a great learning tool, and some fun hackery.
Wizard Spider
What happens when a group of intelligent and highly motivated researchers, like the folks at PRODRAFT, set their sites on a big ransomware gang? Well first, they have to come up with a catchy name. They decided to call this Conti-slinging malware gang Wizard Spider — getting some strong D&D vibes from that one.
The PDF report
details the findings, and they are impressive. The investigation mapped out WS’s tools of choice, as well as some of their infrastructure, like the web of Wireguard tunnels they use to proxy their actions. Most interesting was the discovery of a backup server, believed to be in Russia, that also contained backups corresponding to REvil attacks. Theories abound as to what exactly that finding indicates. There’s another version of the report that was handed over to law enforcement, probably including more identifying information.
There are a few notable techniques discussed here, including a machine learning engine that looks at writing, and tries to determine the author’s native language. There are tells for this, like leaving out articles, like “the”, and using the wrong verb tense. Some odd looking English phrases are literal word-for-word translations of common expressions in the native tongue. In a conclusion that surprised no-one, PRODRAFT determined that the official spokesperson of WS was a native Russian speaker. Hopefully the rest of the story behind the extraction of this trove of information can be shared. It promises to be quite the tale of hacking the hackers, and maybe some old-fashioned trade-craft, as well.
Revealing the Parallels Hack
During Pwn2own 2021, [Jack Dates] of RET2 Systems
managed to break the Parallels VM
. To our delight, he has
written up the exploit process
for our education. A series of bugs in the guest additions code allows for a chain to escape the guest. The first bug used is an information leak, where 0x20 bytes are written to a 0x90 sized buffer, and then the whole buffer is exposed to the guest. That’s 0x70 bytes of host VM heap memory that can be read at a time, just enough to work out some base addresses.
The next bug is a buffer overflow in the drag-and-drop handling code. The struct passed to the host contains a string intended to be null-terminated, and skipping the null allows for a buffer overflow onto the stack. This overflow can be used to break the exception handling of the guest addition code running on the host. A third bug, a so-called “megasmash” doesn’t seem very useful, as it overflows an integer to trigger a massive buffer overflow. The problem with using this one is that when it overflows, it tries to write
0xffffffff
bytes over the programs memory. The chain does use this to modify a callback pointer to point at malicious code. However, some of the memory is guaranteed to be read-only, triggering an exception.
The key there is that the exception handling has been tampered with, so when the exception is triggered, the handling code immediately faults and hangs, preventing the normal program cleanup. Other threads can then hit the tampered-with function pointer, leading to code execution. The discovered bugs were all fixed late last year, and [Jack] made a nice $40,000 for the exploit chain. Enjoy! | 14 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476261",
"author": "Joseph Eoff",
"timestamp": "2022-05-20T14:19:30",
"content": "“The solution is to either prompt the user for authorization before unlocking the vehicle, or embedding location information in the encrypted payload.”Or just use a freaking key, for Pete’s sake.All t... | 1,760,372,688.299868 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/20/portable-3d-printer-gets-even-smaller-faster-better/ | Portable 3D Printer Gets Even Smaller, Faster, Better | Dan Maloney | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"compact",
"CoreXY",
"portable",
"positron printer"
] | How do you improve on a fast, capable 3D printer that sports an innovative design and is portable enough to fit in a printer spool box? Judging by what went into
the Positron V3 portable printer
, (video, embedded below) it takes a lot of hard work and an unwillingness to settle for compromise designs. Plus a few lucky breaks and some design wizardry.
When
we first reported
on [Kralyn]’s innovative “Positron” printer, its chief selling points were its portability and unique layout. With a fold-down Z-axis and a CoreXY-style drive in the base, plus an interesting 90° hot end and transparent heated build plate, the Positron managed to hit most of its design goals. But there’s always room for improvement, and Positron V3, shown in the video below, has made some pretty substantial leaps over that original concept.
The V3 design keeps the basic layout of the original, but greatly improves the usability and portability, while increasing performance and build volume. The heated borosilicate build plate is now held to the Z-axis drive with a much sturdier strut, and gets its juice through a high-temperature MagSafe connector. The X- and Y-axes are now driven by pancake steppers, which along with adding idler pulleys that are coaxial to the drive pulleys, make the CoreXY drive, and hence the printer’s base, much more compact. The printer is still much, much faster than most traditional gantry design, and print quality is on par with anything available commercially. And yes, it still fits into a standard 1-kg filament spool box when folded up.
We love this design, and the story of how the V3 came about and the intermediate V2 that didn’t make the cut is a fascinating case study in design. And as a bonus, [Kralyn] will open-source the V3 design, so you can build your own as soon as he releases the files.
[Andrew] tipped us off to this one. Thanks! | 35 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6476200",
"author": "Gregg Eshelman",
"timestamp": "2022-05-20T11:26:07",
"content": "How much? Take my $!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6476209",
"author": "sjm4306",
"timestamp": "2022-05-20T12:11:58",
... | 1,760,372,688.426658 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/25/homebrew-radio-telescope-bags-pulsar/ | Homebrew Radio Telescope Bags Pulsar | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Space"
] | [
"Camelopardalis",
"LNA",
"neutron star",
"Nooelec",
"PSR B0329+54",
"pulsar",
"Radio Astronomy",
"RTL-SDR",
"sdr"
] | When one mulls the possibility of detecting pulsars, to the degree that one does, thoughts turn to large dish antennas and rack upon rack of sensitive receivers, filters, and digital signal processors. But there’s more than one way to catch the regular radio bursts from these celestial beacons, and if you know what you’re doing,
a small satellite dish and an RTL-SDR dongle
will suffice.
Granted, [Job Geheniau] has had a lot of experience exploring the radio universe. His website has a long list of observations and accomplishments achieved using his “JRT”, or “Job’s Radio Telescope.” The instrument looks like a homebrewer’s dream, with a 1.9-m satellite TV dish and precision azimuth-elevation rotator. Behind the feedhorn are a pair of low-noise amplifiers and bandpass filters to massage the 1,420 MHz signal that’s commonly used for radio astronomy, plus a Nooelec Smart SDR dongle and an Airspy Mini. Everything is run via remote control, as the interference is much lower with the antenna situated at his family’s farm, 50 km distant from his home in The Hague.
As for the pulsar, bloodlessly named PSR B0329+54, it’s a 5-million-year-old neutron star located in the constellation of Camelopardalis, about 3,500 light-years away. It’s a well-characterized pulsar and pulses at a regular 0.71452 seconds, but it’s generally observed with much, much larger antennas. [Job]’s write-up of the observation contains a lot of detail on the methods and software he used, and while the data is far from clear to the casual observer, it sure seems like he bagged it.
We’ve seen quite a few DIY radio astronomy projects before, both
large
and
small
, but this one really impresses with what it accomplished.
[via
RTL-SDR.com
] | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6477789",
"author": "Casual Observer",
"timestamp": "2022-05-25T11:39:55",
"content": "“the data is far from clear to the casual observer”. No kidding!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6477804",
"author": "Mo",
"timestamp... | 1,760,372,688.346488 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/25/long-distance-text-communication-with-lora/ | Long-Distance Text Communication With LoRa | Bryan Cockfield | [
"handhelds hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"blackberry",
"communications",
"keyboard",
"LoRa",
"Memory LCD",
"off grid",
"qwerty",
"radio",
"text",
"wireless"
] | Affordable and reliable cell phones have revolutionized the way we communicate over the last two decades or so, and this change was only accelerated by the adoption of the smartphone. This is all well and good if you’re living in a place with cellular infrastructure, but if you’re in more remote areas you’ll have to be a little more inventive.
This text-based communications device
, for example, lets you send text messages without all of that cumbersome infrastructure.
While [Arthur] didn’t create this project specifically for off-grid use, it’s an interesting project nonetheless. The devices use a physical QWERTY keyboard and a small screen, reminiscent of BlackBerry devices from the late 2000s (partially because they are actually using BlackBerry keyboards). One of the other goals for this project was low power consumption, and between polling the keyboard, the memory LCDs, and receiving and transmitting messages using LoRa, [Arthur] was able to get the current draw down to 12 mA.
Between the relatively common nRF52840 and SX1262 chips, plus the fact that [Arthur] made the schematics available, this makes for an excellent off-grid device for anyone who likes to drive off into the wilderness or lives far enough outside of town that cell phone reception is a concern.
Looking for something a little easier to put together before your upcoming camping trip?
This similarly styled LoRa communicator from [MSG]
uses off-the-shelf modules to greatly reduce the part count. Another option for off-grid communications is to
use existing smartphones paired with a LoRa network like we saw in this project
. | 50 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6477751",
"author": "70sJukebox",
"timestamp": "2022-05-25T08:13:37",
"content": "https://github.com/BigCorvus/LORA-QWERTY-Communicator/tree/main/Q10%20Lora%20Communicator/Arduino“The feather nrf52840 express bootloader needs to be flashed via a segger jlink and the Arduino IDE.”Tha... | 1,760,372,688.703739 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/24/hal-9000-becomes-a-helpful-voice-assistant/ | HAL 9000 Becomes A Helpful Voice Assistant | Lewin Day | [
"home hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"hal",
"hal 9000",
"hal9000"
] | There have been many robots and AIs in science fiction over the years, from
Astro Boy
to
Cortana,
or even Virgil for fans of the long-forgotten
Crash Zone.
However, all these pale into insignificance in front of the cold, uncaring persona of the HAL 9000. Thus, [Jürgen Pabel] thought the imposing AI
would make the perfect home assistant.
The build is based on a
Raspberry Pi Zero 2,
which boasts more grunt than the original Pi Zero while still retaining good battery life and a compact form factor. It’s hooked up with a 1.28″ round TFT display which acts as the creepy glowing eye through which HAL is supposed to perceive the world. There’s naturally a speaker on board to deliver HAL’s haunting monotone, and it’s all wrapped up in an tidy case that really looks the part. It runs on the open-source voice assistant
Kalliope
to help out with tasks around the home.
[Jürgen]’s page shares all the details you need to make your own, from the enclosure construction to the code that laces everything together.
It’s not the first HAL 9000 we’ve seen around these parts, either
. Video after the break. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6477750",
"author": "Max",
"timestamp": "2022-05-25T08:05:40",
"content": "Nice!! I like the visuals on the eyeball!I am also building such a device – nonetheless, instead of a display, I use a High Power LED and as a lens I use a “Smartphone Wideangle” Extension Lens.Nice project :... | 1,760,372,688.751913 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/24/graphyne-finally-created/ | Graphyne Finally Created | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"graphene",
"graphyne",
"organic chemistry"
] | Before you jump down to the comments to chastise us for misspelling graphene, note that graphyne is similar to graphene but not the same. Like graphene, it is a two-dimensional structure of carbon. Unlike graphene, it contains double and triple bonds and does not always form hexagons. Scientists have postulated its existence for decades, but researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have finally
managed to pull it off
. You can also
download the paper
if you want to wade through the details.
Carbon forms like fullerene and graphene are well-known and have many novel uses. Other allotropes of carbon include graphite and diamonds — certainly two things with wildly varying properties. Graphyne has conductivity similar to graphene but may also have other benefits.
The process is called alkyne metathesis, a fancy name for an organic reaction that reforms alkyne bonds. The process does require kinetic and thermodynamic control, including performing the reaction under argon. The entire produced is outlined in the paper under “Methods.” While it takes a little more than a test tube and a bunsen burner, it doesn’t sound like it takes anything too exotic — some chemicals, a Schlenk flask, liquid nitrogen, and a hot oil bath. This is something a well-stocked home lab might be able to pull off.
We still don’t know what to do with the graphene we make, but it isn’t
that hard to make it
. There are
several different methods
. Maybe we’ll see DIY graphyne soon. | 22 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6477713",
"author": "Daniel Scott Matthews",
"timestamp": "2022-05-25T03:02:07",
"content": "This is just the beginning of an entirely new field of molecular construction. If you look at the work of Paul Harrison and you realise that the tiles can represent molecules then you can se... | 1,760,372,688.482553 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/24/3d-printing-fabrics-is-easier-than-you-think/ | 3D Printing Fabrics Is Easier Than You Think | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"fabric",
"textiles"
] | Conventional textiles made of woven threads are highly useful materials. [Sara Alvarez] has had some success
creating fabric-like materials through 3D printing
, and though they’re not identical, they have some similar properties that make them unique and useful.
Fabrics are made by the weaving or knitting together many threads into a cohesive whole. [Sara]’s 3D-printed fabrics are different, since the printer can’t readily weave individual fibers together. Instead, a variety of methods are used to create similar materials.
The simplest is perhaps the chainmail method, where many small individual links join together to make a relatively rigid material. Alternatively, G-code or careful modelling can be used to create fabric-like patterns, which are printed directly in flexible material to become a fabric-like sheet. Finally, the infill method takes advantage of code inbuilt to a slicer to create a pattern that can be 3D-printed to create a fabric like material by removing the top and bottom layers of the print.
[Sara] demonstrates creating a simple “fabric” swatch using the slicer method, and demonstrates the qualities of the finished product. She also shows off various applications that can take advantage of this technique.
If you’re a 3D-printing enthusiast who also loves making clothes and apparel, consider printing up some shoes –
like these we’ve seen before
. Video after the break. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6477699",
"author": "Red",
"timestamp": "2022-05-25T00:42:09",
"content": "I’ve found that a simple 100% solid 0.1mm layer of 95A TPU printed on a textured bed, makes for a relatively fabric-like consistency, no slicing/gcode/geometry tricks needed.",
"parent_id": null,
"dep... | 1,760,372,688.807157 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/24/the-stm32-makes-for-a-cheap-diy-usb-soundcard/ | The STM32 Makes For A Cheap DIY USB Soundcard | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"green pill",
"sound card",
"stm32"
] | Soundcards used to be giant long 8-bit ISA things that would take up a huge amount of real estate inside a desktop computer. These days, for most of us, they’re baked into the motherboard and we barely give them a second thought. [Samsonov Dima] decided to whip up a cheap little sound card of their own, however,
built around the STM32
.
The soundcard is based specifically on the STM32F401. readily available on the “Green Pill” devboards. A digital-to-analog converter is implemented on the board based on two PWM timers providing high-quality output. There’s also a simulated software sigma delta ADC implemented between the audio streaming in via USB and the actual PWM output, with some fancy tricks used to improve the sound output. [Samsonov] even found time to add a display with twin VU meters that shows the audio pumping through the left and right channels.
Without test gear on hand, we can’t readily quantify the performance of the sound card. However, as per
the Youtube videos posted
, it appears more than capable of recreating music with good fidelity and plenty of fine detail.
If you need a cheap, simple USB sound card that you can hack away on, this might be the one for you. If you need something more suitable for a vintage PC, however,
consider this instead
. Video after the break. | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6477668",
"author": "NiHaoMike",
"timestamp": "2022-05-24T22:08:02",
"content": "Here’s a similar project based on a PIC32 that can do 24 bit at 96kHz:https://github.com/kiffie/usb-spdif",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6477672... | 1,760,372,688.862029 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/24/character-vfd-becomes-spectrum-analyzer/ | Character VFD Becomes Spectrum Analyzer | Lewin Day | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"audio visualizer",
"spectrum analyzer",
"visualizer"
] | These days, streaming services are a great way to listen to music or podcasts on your computer or on the go. However, they lack one feature of the MP3 players and streamers of old: visualizations! [mircemk] is a fan of those,
and has built a hardware spectrum analyzer that pumps with the music.
The build relies on a 20×2 character VFD display that looks great, with high brightness and excellent contrast. It can be easily driven from a microcontroller, as it has a controller on board compatible with the typical HD44780 command set. On Arduino platforms, this means the display can easily be driven with the popular LiquidCrystal library.
The Arduino Nano inside takes in the audio signal via its analog inputs. It then processes the audio with the fix_fft library, which runs a Fast Fourier Transform in order to figure out the energy level of each frequency bin in the audio spectrum for both the left and right channels. This data is then sent to the screen for display. It’s impressively fast and smooth, with the display dancing along with the beat nicely as [mircemk] tests it out with some tunes.
If it looks familiar, it’s because it’s an updated version of a prior project from [mircemk]. We saw it previously as a VU meter
that pulsed with the beat,
an altogether simpler visualization but still a cool one. Video after the break. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6477667",
"author": "Val",
"timestamp": "2022-05-24T22:07:07",
"content": "Awesomeness!Very good idea to use text-only display for non-text-only purposes. Adding another item into my to-do list.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6... | 1,760,372,688.90574 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/19/water-your-plants-just-four-times-per-year/ | Water Your Plants Just Four Times Per Year | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"green hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"automated plant care",
"automatic plant watering"
] | While it’s true that some plants thrive on neglect, many of them do just fine with a few ounces of water once a week, as long as the light level is right. But even that is plenty to remember and actually do in our unprecedented times, so why bother trying? [Martin] has solved this problem for us, having given every aspect of automatic plant care a lot of thought. The result of his efforts is
Flaura, a self-watering open-source plant pot
, and
a YouTube channel
to go with it.
The 3D-printed pot can easily be scaled up or down to suit the size of the plant, and contains a water reservoir that holds about 0.7 L of water at the default size. Just pour it in through the little spout, and you’re good for about three months, depending on the plant, the light it’s in, and how much
current
water it draws. You can track the dryness level in the companion app.
Whenever the capacitive soil moisture sensor hidden in the bottom of the dirt detects drought conditions, it sends a signal through the Wemos LOLIN32 and a MOSFET to a small pump, which sends up water from the reservoir.
The soil is watered uniformly by a small hose riddled with dozens of tiny holes that create little low-pressure water jets. This is definitely our favorite part of the project — not just because it’s cool looking, but also because a lot of these types of builds tend to release the water in the same spot all the time, which is. . . not how we water our plants. Be sure to check out the project overview video after the break.
No printer? No problem —
you could always use an old Keurig machine
to water a single plant, as long as the pump is still good.
Thanks for the tip, [Keith]! | 20 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475714",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2022-05-19T11:59:56",
"content": "It would be nice to have an appless version, imagine having an entire greenhouse full of these. Some sort of base station, that lets you map a specific pot to a physical location on a drawing of your setup... | 1,760,372,689.056997 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/19/engineering-vs-pigeons/ | Engineering Vs Pigeons | Al Williams | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"opencv",
"pigeon",
"water gun"
] | We’ve all been there. Pigeons are generally pretty innocuous, but they do leave a mess. If you have a convertible or a bicycle or even just a clean car, you probably don’t want them hanging around. [Max] was tired of a messy balcony, so like you might approach any engineering problem, he worked his way through several possible solutions. Starting with plastic crows, and
naturally ending with an automated water gun
.
The resulting robotic water gun that targets pigeons with openCV is a dandy project and while we don’t usually advocate shooting at neighborhood animals, we don’t think a little water will be any worse than the rain for the pigeons. The build started with a cheap electric water pistol. A Wemos D1 Mini ESP8266 development board provides the brainpower. The water pistol wouldn’t easily take rechargeable batteries, plus it is a good idea to separate the logic supply and the pump motors, so the D1 gets power from a USB power bank separate from the gun’s batteries.
That leaves the camera. An old iPhone 6S with a 3D printed bracket feeds video to a Python script that uses openCV. If looks for changes using a very particular algorithm to detect that something is moving and fires the gun. It doesn’t appear that it actually tracks the pigeons, so maybe that’s a thought for version 2.
Was it successful? Maybe, but it does seem like the pigeons learned to avoid it. We still think azimuth and elevation on the gun would help.
Most of the time when we see pigeon hacking it is to use them for
nefarious purposes
. [Max] should be glad he doesn’t have to
deal with lions
. | 36 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475644",
"author": "Viktor",
"timestamp": "2022-05-19T08:17:44",
"content": "I always wondered how to blow up pigeons like in the movie, they are so irritating.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6475647",
"author": "Drunken+I... | 1,760,372,688.986897 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/18/defeat-your-cars-autostop-feature-with-a-little-switchbot/ | Defeat Your Car’s Autostop Feature With A Little SwitchBot | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"auto-stop",
"autostop",
"car",
"switchbot"
] | These days, many new cars come with some variant of an “auto-stop” feature. This shuts down the car’s engine at stop lights and in other similar situations in order to save fuel and reduce emissions. Not everyone is a fan however, and [CGamer_OS] got sick of having to switch off the feature every time they got in the car. So they
employed a little robot to handle the problem instead.
The robot in question is a
SwitchBot
, a small Internet of Things tool that’s highly configurable for pressing buttons. It’s literally a robot designed to press buttons, either when remotely commanded to, or when certain rules are met. It can even be configured to work with IFTTT.
In this case, the Switchbot is set up to activate when [CGamer_OS]’s phone is placed in phone mount, where it scans an NFC tag. When this happens, Switchbot springs into action, switching off the autostop function. It was set up this way to avoid Switchbot hitting the button before the car has been started. Instead, simply popping the smartphone in the cradle activates the ‘bot.
It’s a rather creative use of the SwitchBot. They’re more typically employed to turn on dumb devices like air conditioners or heaters that can otherwise be difficult to control via the Internet. However, it works well, and means that [CGamer_OS] didn’t have to make any permanent modifications to the car.
The design of the SwitchBot reminds us of the
Useless Box
, even if in this case it has an actual purpose. Video after the break.
Got real tired of turning this off every time I got in my car.
from
funny | 207 | 32 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475576",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2022-05-19T05:49:40",
"content": "okay, one simple question…. why would I disable this feature (other than when I am in a traffic stop-and-go traffic jam)?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,372,689.373136 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/18/one-coder-is-porting-portal-to-the-nintendo-64/ | One Coder Is PortingPortalTo The Nintendo 64 | Lewin Day | [
"Games",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"game",
"nintendo 64",
"portal",
"recreation",
"valve"
] | When
Portal
came out in 2007, developers Valve chose not to release the groundbreaking title on an obsolete Nintendo console long out of production. Nobody cared at the time, of course, but [James Lambert] is here to right that wrong. Yes,
he’s porting
Portal
to the N64
.
The port, or “demake,” as [James] calls it, has been under construction for some time. The project has posed some challenges:
Portal
was developed for PCs that were vastly more powerful than the Nintendo 64 of 1996. Thus, initial concerns were that the console wouldn’t be able to handle
the physics of the game
or render the recursive portal graphics.
However, hard work has paid off. [James] has chipped away, bit by bit, making improvements to his engine all the while.
The latest work
has the portals rendering nicely, and the companion cube works just the way you’d expect. There’s also a visible portal gun, and the engine can even render 15 recursive layers when looking through mirrored portals. Sixteen was too much.
Of course, there’s still lots to do. There’s no player model yet, and basic animations and sound are lacking. However, the core concept is there, and watching [James] flit through the not-quite-round portals is an absolute delight. Even better, it runs smoothly even on original Nintendo hardware. It’s a feat worthy of commendation.
We had no idea what [James] had in store back when we featured his work creating
real-time shadows on N64 hardware.
Now we know! Video after the break.
Thanks to [Itay] for the tip! | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475537",
"author": "come2",
"timestamp": "2022-05-19T02:33:43",
"content": "Demakes are popular and useful homebrew projects, and Portal is one of the best games ever made, hence this is really great",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment... | 1,760,372,689.106504 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/18/midi-controller-looks-good-enables-your-air-guitar-habit/ | MIDI Controller Looks Good, Enables Your Air Guitar Habit | Al Williams | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"guitar",
"midi",
"midi controller"
] | We all want to be guitar heroes, but most of us have to settle for letting a MIDI board play our riffs using a MIDI controller. [Joris] thinks a MIDI controller should look like a cool instrument and thus the
Ni28
was born. Honestly, we first thought we were looking at wall art, but on closer look, you can see the fretboard and the soundhole are festooned with buttons.
Actually, they aren’t really buttons. The Ni in the name is because the buttons are nickel-plated brass plates that act like touch switches. There’s virtually no activation force required and you can easily touch more than one plate at a time.
We didn’t see any plans or build details available, but this is the kind of thing you’d probably want to make with your own custom touches anyway. It seems like you could build the frame using a variety of techniques and the MIDI controller itself isn’t hard to figure out.
We were a little surprised there was no video of the Ni28 in action. But if you build your own version, send up your best MIDI air guitar video, please.
This did remind us of the
synthfonio
. Or, maybe start with a
real guitar
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475525",
"author": "joriswegner",
"timestamp": "2022-05-19T01:40:15",
"content": "Thanks for the article! Since some people asked I decided to publish the Kicad files for my prototype even though I shelved the project: hackaday.io/project/185427-ni28-electronic-midi-guitar",
"p... | 1,760,372,689.421494 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/18/3d-printed-linear-actuator-is-cheap-and-strong/ | 3D Printed Linear Actuator Is Cheap And Strong | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"linear actuator"
] | Motors are all well and good for moving things, but they’re all about the
round-and-round.
Sometimes, you need to move something back and forth, and for that a linear actuator will do the trick. While they can be readily sourced for under $50 online, [Michael Rechtin] genuinely felt like reinventing the wheel, and managed to whip up a 3D-printed design
that costs under 20 bucks.
The basic design is simple, consisting of a small motor which is geared down through several stages using simple spur gears. The last gear in the train is tasked with turning a lead screw which drives the arm of the linear actuator back and forward.
For simplicity, [Michael] used a 24V brushed DC gearmotor for its low cost and the fact it already has a step-down gearbox integrated into the design. It’s paired with a couple more 3D-printed spur gears to provide even more torque. Instead of a fancy lead screw, the build instead just uses a quarter-inch bolt sourced from Home Depot, which can be had much cheaper. This pushes a 3D-printed arm back and forth thanks to a nut stuck in the arm. It’s all wrapped up in a neat-and-tidy 3D-printed housing. The design is able to push with a force of roughly 220 lbs. For a more practical idea of its strength, it can readily crush an empty soda can.
The video on the design is great, showing how important features like limit switches are added, and how the wiring can be neatly hidden away inside the housing. We’ve seen [Michael’s] work before, too, like
strength testing various types of 3D printed gears
. Video after the break.
[Thanks to Sebastian for the tip!] | 29 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475445",
"author": "infrared",
"timestamp": "2022-05-18T20:59:18",
"content": "Now for some hazardous environment testing. I bet they wont live up in 200 deg F heat. Also probably wont live in a high nox environment",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,689.493639 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/18/hackaday-prize-2022-recycled-tire-table-is-where-the-rubber-meets-the-road/ | Hackaday Prize 2022: Recycled Tire Table Is Where The Rubber Meets The Road | Kristina Panos | [
"green hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize",
"furniture",
"jute",
"recycling",
"tire"
] | The problem with good inventions is that we usually end up with way too many of that particular widget lying around, which can cause all kinds of problems. Take the car tire, for instance. They were a great invention that helped spell the end of buggy whips and broken wagon wheels. But there are so many used-up tires about today that some people end up burning them in large piles, of all possible things.
Not [Vaibhav], who prefers to turn trash into utilitarian treasures. With little more than an old tire, some jute rope, and four plastic drink bottles,
they made a sturdy, low-slung piece of furniture
that could be used as a coffee table, a foot stool, or whatever life calls for.
Construction was fairly simple and involved stabilizing the hollow core with a round piece of cardboard glued to either side of the tire. Then came the jute rope and glue artistry, which hides any trace of the foundational materials. Finally, [Vaibhav] glued four plastic bottles to the bottom to act as legs. We think that steel cans would last longer and support more weight, but if plastic bottles are the only option, you could always fill them with dirt or sand.
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 43 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475393",
"author": "Max S.",
"timestamp": "2022-05-18T18:43:30",
"content": "Rules for commenting: please be kind and respectful …Let’s just say you can’t make a silk purse out of a soy’s ear.…. and what happens to the “smell” of the tire?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,689.669005 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/18/the-little-big-dogs-of-invention/ | The Little Big Dogs Of Invention | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"innovation",
"Rant"
] | This is a story about two dogs I know. It is also a story of the U.S. Navy, aviation, and nuclear weapons. Sometimes it is easy to see things in dogs or other people, but hard to see those same things in ourselves. It’s a good thing that dogs can’t read (that we know of) because this is a bit of an embarrassing story for Doc. He’s a sweet good-natured dog and he’s a rather large labradoodle. He occasionally visits another usually good-natured dog, Rocky — a sheltie who is much smaller than Doc.
I say Rocky is good-natured and with people, he is. But he doesn’t care so much for other dogs. I often suspect he doesn’t realize he’s a dog and he is puzzled by how other dogs behave. You would think that when Doc comes to visit, the big dog would lord it over the little dog, right? Turns out, Doc doesn’t realize he’s way bigger than Rocky and — apparently — Rocky doesn’t realize he should be terrified of Doc. So Rocky bullies Doc to the point of embarrassment. Rocky will block him from the door, for example, and Doc will sit quaking unable to muster the courage to pass the formidable Rocky.
Big Doc…
Somewhat smaller Rocky….
It makes you wonder how many times we could do something except for the fact that we “know” we can’t do it. Or we believe someone who tells us we can’t. Doc could barge right past Rocky if he wanted to and he could also put Rocky in his place. But he doesn’t realize that those things are possible.
You see this a lot in the areas of technology and innovation. Often big advances come from people who don’t know that the experts say something is impossible or they don’t believe them. Case in point: people were anxious to fly around the start of the 1900s. People had dreamed of flying since the dawn of time and it seemed like it might actually be possible. People like
Alberto Santos-Dumont
, the Wright brothers, Clément Ader, and Gustave Whitehead all have claimed that they were the first to fly. Others like Sir George Cayley, William Henson, Otto Lilienthal, and Octave Chanute were all experimenting with gliders and powered craft even earlier with some success.
In the Navy
In the future, the U.S. Navy would become a heavy user of airplanes. But Rear Admiral George Melville, the Engineer-in-Chief of the Navy in 1901 wrote
an article for the North American Review
about people’s desire to fly. He considered the idea to be childish and a waste of effort, saying there was no other field where “so much inventive seed has been sown with so little return.” The Navy was conspicuously in error on this topic as the director of the U.S. Naval Observatory stated in 1902 that “Flight by machines heavier than air is impractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.”
Thankfully, the Wright brothers were too busy building to read the papers.
In 1903 — nine weeks before the Wright Brothers made their first flight — the New York Times had an article about failed attempts to fly. It read, in part: “…it might be assumed that the flying machine which will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years — provided, of course, we can meanwhile eliminate such little drawbacks and embarrassments as the existing relation between weight and strength in inorganic materials.”
Wow. Glad the Wright brothers didn’t get the New York Times. Even the illustrious Lord Kelvin didn’t believe in airplanes (or X-rays, apparently, although he was right about
transatlantic cables
).
Even by 1910, the director of the Harvard College Observatory stated that airplanes would never reach the speeds possible with trains and automobiles. About that same time, Ferdinand Foch, the French general, thought that planes were of no military value.
Rocketman
The philosopher Wittgenstein, who died before Sputnik started the space race, used the concept of people going to the moon as an example of something absurd that we all know isn’t possible. In 1950, he wrote: “What we believe depends on what we learn. We all believe that it isn’t possible to get to the moon; but there might be people who believe that that is possible and that it sometimes happens. We say: these people do not know a lot that we know.”
Of course, during his lifetime, going to the moon was impossible and there are still people who think we haven’t been to the moon despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. But many people were unconvinced that a moon landing was a reasonable goal for just a few scant years in the 1960s.
Every field has stories like this, it isn’t just flight. When Edison announced the lightbulb was going to be a reality, the British government set up a commission to look into it. Their conclusion? “Good enough for our transatlantic friends… but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men.”
99 Luftballons
What if Germany had the bomb in WWII?
But perhaps the most important and fortunate bad statement from an expert happened during World War II. You’ve certainly heard the name Werner Heisenberg. A physicist of note, he headed up the German effort to harness the atom. Early in the war, there was consideration of building a nuclear bomb using uranium until Heisenberg calculated that a critical mass of U235 would be on the order of 10 tons.
Daunted by the production and transportation of that much uranium, the Germans turned to experimenting with heavy water and more or less ignored the kinds of bombs the Americans would successfully build using far less U235. The correct number for critical mass of U235 is just over 100 pounds and by using reflection, compression, and other techniques, a bomb really only takes around 20 or 30 pounds of U235 and even less plutonium 239 or uranium 233.
Historians have long debated what this means
. Heisenberg was an excellent physicist, so it is hard to imagine he would make such a large mistake. But it isn’t clear if he made it deliberately or if it was just in error. Heisenberg and some colleagues were “guests” of the British when the news announced the bombing of Hiroshima. Hidden microphones picked up
Heisenberg’s reaction
: “Some dilettante in America who knows very little about it has bluffed them,” he said. “I don’t believe that t has anything to do with uranium.” He mentioned that it was impossible that the Allies had ten tons of pure U235. Unless he was performing for hidden microphones he suspected were there — which is certainly possible — it would seem he really did think it would take tons of material.
To Dream the Impossible Dream
So what projects have you decided were not possible? I know you do have to temper it a little. No matter how badly you want to invent perpetual motion or warp drives, they seem out of reach. Then again, so did the moon.
Vince Lombardi gets credit for saying “We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.” Good advice for all of us. Especially Doc.
[Banner Image: “
One of the first airplanes built in Canada
” by ArchivesOfOntario, Public Domain] | 53 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475363",
"author": "That kid",
"timestamp": "2022-05-18T17:08:38",
"content": "Bravo!!!Excellent story, very uplifting!!!Needed this today!!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6475364",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known... | 1,760,372,689.764823 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/18/practice-your-shopping-skills-with-this-self-service-checkout-game/ | Practice Your Shopping Skills With This Self-Service Checkout Game | Robin Kearey | [
"Games"
] | [
"barcode scanner",
"self-checkout",
"self-service checkout"
] | Self-service checkouts have become a common feature in supermarkets the world over, a trend accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic. While some may lament the loss of human contact, others relish the opportunity to do their own scanning: with a bit of practice, self-service can provide for a very fast checkout experience. Assuming, of course, that the machine recognizes each product, the built-in weight sensor works correctly, and you don’t get selected for a random check.
If you want to practice your checkout game without spending loads of money, you might want to have a look at [Niklas Roy] and [Kati Hyyppä]’s latest project:
Bonprix is a game where the goal is to scan as many items as possible within a 90-second time limit
. Installed at the
Eniarof
DIY festival, it’s designed to resemble a typical supermarket checkout with a display, a barcode scanner and a shopping basket filled with random items. The screen indicates which item should be scanned next; if you’re too slow, the checkout will begin to offer discounts, which you obviously don’t want. When the 90 seconds are over, the machine spits out a receipt indicating your total score.
The checkout desk is made from wooden pallets and cardboard; inside is a laptop running Linux, with a handheld barcode scanner attached via USB. An LED strip provides a beam of bright red light to indicate the scanning area, and turns green when a barcode is successfully scanned. Arduinos control the LEDs and the big red-and-yellow “start” button, while a thermal printer from an ATM prints the receipts at the end of each game.
Apart from a bit of fun, the Bonprix project tries to address questions relating to consumer culture and self-checkouts: is it fair to let customers do their own work? Should they be paid for it? Is it even ethical to encourage people to spend as much as possible?
While this is the first time we’ve seen a self-service checkout computer game, we’ve done a few deep dives into the fascinating
technology of barcodes
that makes it all possible.
Check this out
! | 13 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475318",
"author": "Max S.",
"timestamp": "2022-05-18T15:38:15",
"content": "What a fun idea … looks like people are enjoying it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6475322",
"author": "Viktor",
"timestamp": "2022-05-18T15... | 1,760,372,689.963011 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/18/natural-language-ai-in-your-next-project-its-easier-than-you-think/ | Natural Language AI In Your Next Project? It’s Easier Than You Think | Donald Papp | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"ai",
"GPT-3",
"machine learning",
"natural language",
"openai"
] | Want your next project to trash talk? Dynamically rewrite boring log messages as sci-fi technobabble? Happily (or grudgingly) answer questions? Doing that sort of thing and more can be done with
OpenAI’s GPT-3
, a natural language prediction model with an API that is probably a lot easier to use than you might think.
In fact, if you have basic Python coding skills, or even just the ability to craft a
curl
statement, you have just about everything you need to add this ability to your next project. It’s not free in the long run, although initial use is free on signup, but for personal projects the costs will be very small.
Basic Concepts
OpenAI has an API that provides access to GPT-3, a machine learning model with the ability to perform just about any task that involves understanding or generating natural-sounding language.
OpenAI provides
some excellent documentation
as well as a web tool through which one can experiment interactively. First, however, one must create an account and receive an API key. After that is done, the doors are open.
Creating an account also gives one a number of free credits that can be used to experiment with ideas. Once the free trial is used up or expires, using the API will cost money. How much? Not a lot, frankly. Everything sent to (and received from) the API is broken into tokens, and
pricing
is from $0.0008 to $0.06 per thousand tokens. A thousand tokens is roughly 750 words, so small projects are really not a big financial commitment. My free trial came with 18 USD of credits, of which I have so far barely managed to spend 5%.
Let’s take a closer look at how it works, and what can be done with it!
How It Works
The API accepts requests in a variety of ways, and if you can craft a
curl
statement, use the command line, or write some simple Python (or node.js) code, good news! You have all you need to start trying ideas!
I will describe using the API in its most basic way, that of
completion
. That means one presents the API with a
prompt
, from which it will provide a text
completion
that attempts to match the prompt. All of this is done entirely in text, and formatted as natural language.
Using the API in this way can be thought of as implementing a kind of highly-capable autocomplete. The engine itself can be thought of as a sort of fantastically-complex state machine, while at the same time it is also not quite like anything else.
What Kind of Stuff is Possible?
Here’s a very simple example:
Prompt (sent to API)
Completion (response from API)
Write a witty error message for a low battery condition.
“You’re running on empty!”
The
prompt
is also how one “programs” the model, and designing a good prompt is a big part of getting good results.
Because the model is capable of understanding language structure and intent, a
prompt
can be worded as if one were giving a writing assignment to a middle schooler.
Here is a slightly more complex example that does exactly that:
Prompt
Completion
Provide excited commentary for an event in a tabletop game about trains.
Event: A player named Rob sells a company.
Commentary:
“Rob has decided to sell their company. This is a big move and will have big repercussions on the game. Who will buy the company? What will they do with it? Only time will tell.”
There are a few things to point out in the above example. The first line of the prompt describes what is to be done. The next two lines (“Event:” and “Commentary:”) set the model up on how to the statement should be completed. Note that the “Commentary:” line is left blank in the prompt; the model will complete what was started.
The practice of crafting effective prompts is called
prompt design
, and it is key to getting all sorts of useful and different responses from the API. Let’s take a closer look at how prompt design affects results.
Getting Better Responses
If one is having trouble getting the model to respond in a useful way, it can be helpful to include multiple examples of what is wanted in the prompt itself to give the model a better idea of what is expected.
The API documentation has
an excellent demonstration
of this idea, and I will briefly restate it below:
Prompt (sent to API)
Completion (response from API)
Suggest three names for a horse that is a superhero.
Superman, Batman, Spiderman
This result isn’t really what we want. However, including some examples in the prompt itself yields markedly better results:
Prompt (sent to API)
Completion (response from API)
Suggest three names for an animal that is a superhero.
Animal: Cat
Names: Captain Sharpclaw, Agent Fluffball, The Incredible Feline
Animal: Dog
Names: Ruff the Protector, Wonder Canine, Sir Barks-a-Lot
Animal: Horse
Names:
Mighty Steed, Blaze the Wonder Horse, Thunderhoof
Doing this increases costs — recall that one pays per token, both in the prompt as well as in the output — but providing multiple examples in the prompt can be key to getting the best results in some cases, because it gives the model a much clearer idea of what is being requested, and how it should be formatted.
Again, it is helpful to think of the prompt as a writing assignment for a middle-schooler; a middle-schooler who can in turn be thought of as a fantastically-complex and somewhat variable state machine.
Same Prompt, Different Completions
For an identical prompt, the API doesn’t necessarily return the same results. While the nature of the prompt and the data the model has been trained on play a role, diversity of responses can also be affected by the
temperature
setting in a request.
Temperature is a value between 0 and 1, and is an expression of how deterministic the model should be when making predictions about valid completions to a prompt. A temperature of 0 means that submitting the same prompt will result in the same (or very similar) responses each time. A temperature above zero will yield different completions each time.
Put another way, a lower temperature means the model takes fewer risks, resulting in completions that are more deterministic. This is useful when one wants completions that can be accurately predicted, such as responses that are factual in nature. On the other hand, increasing the temperature — 0.7 is a typical default value — yields more diversity in completions.
Fine Tuning the Model
The natural language model behind the API is pre-trained, but it is still possible to customize the model with a separate dataset tailored for a particular application.
This function, called
fine tuning
, allows one to efficiently provide the model with many more examples than it would be practical to include in each prompt. In fact, once a fine tuning dataset has been provided, one no longer needs to include examples in the prompt itself. Requests will be processed faster, as well.
This probably won’t be needed except for narrow applications, but if you find that getting solid results for your project is relying on large prompts and you’d like it to be more efficient,
fine tuning
is where you need to look. OpenAI provides tools to make this process as easy as possible, should you require it.
What Does The Code Look Like?
There is an interactive web tool (the
playground
, requires an account) in which one can use the model to test ideas without having to code something up, but it also has the handy feature of generating a code snippet upon request, for easy copy and pasting into projects.
Here is the very first example in this article, formatted as a simple
curl
request:
curl https://api.openai.com/v1/engines/text-davinci-002/completions \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
-d '{
"prompt": "Write a witty error message for a low battery condition.",
"temperature": 0.7,
"max_tokens": 256,
"top_p": 1,
"frequency_penalty": 0,
"presence_penalty": 0
}'
And the same, this time in Python:
import os
import openai
openai.api_key = os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY")
response = openai.Completion.create(
engine="text-davinci-002",
prompt="Write a witty error message for a low battery condition.",
temperature=0.7,
max_tokens=256,
top_p=1,
frequency_penalty=0,
presence_penalty=0
)
Installing the python package will also install a utility that can be used directly from the command line for maximum convenience:
$ openai api completions.create -e text-davinci-002 -p "Write a simple poem about daisies." --stream -M 128
(Notes:
--stream
displays results as they are received, and
-M 128
limits the reply to a maximum of 128 tokens.)
The prompt “write a simple poem about daisies” generated the following text for me, which would be different every time:
The daisy is a beautiful flower
That grows in the meadow and in the pasture
It has a yellow center and white petals
That make it look like the sun
The daisy is a symbol of innocence
And purity and is loved by all
All of the above examples work the same way: they fire the prompt off to the OpenAI API (using one’s API key for access, which the above examples assume has been set as an environment variable named
OPENAI_API_KEY
), and receive a reply with the response.
Responsible Use
Worth highlighting is OpenAI’s commitment to responsible use, including guidance on
safety best practices
for applications. There is a lot of thoughtful information in that link, but the short version is to always keep in mind that this is a tool that is:
Capable of
making things up
in a
very believable way
, and
Capable of interacting with people.
It’s not hard to see that the combination has potential for harm if used irresponsibly. Like most tools, one should be mindful of misuse, but tools can be wonderful things as well.
Are You Getting Ideas Yet?
Using the API isn’t free in the long term, but creating an account will give you a set of free credits that can be used to play around and try a few ideas out, and using even the most expensive engine for personal projects costs a pittance. All of my enthusiastic experimentation has so far used barely two dollars USD worth of my free trial.
Need some inspiration? We’ve covered a few projects already that have waded in this direction. This
robotic putting game uses natural language AI to generate trash talk
, and
the Deep Dreams podcast
consists entirely of machine-generated fairytales as a sleep aid, and was created with the OpenAI API.
Now that you know what kinds of things are possible and how easy they are, perhaps you are already getting some ideas? Let us know about them in the comments! | 25 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475296",
"author": "Jeremy",
"timestamp": "2022-05-18T14:06:53",
"content": "It is worth noting that, although it is significantly less advanced, one can download and run GPT-2 (the predecessor to GPT-3) locally. There are many helpful guides on the internet.",
"parent_id": nul... | 1,760,372,689.83258 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/18/sunrise-keyboard-looks-the-part/ | Sunrise Keyboard Looks The Part | Lewin Day | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"custom keyboard",
"Elite-C",
"keyboard"
] | If you’ve been to a bar sometime since the 1930s, you’ve probably spied someone drinking a Tequila Sunrise. It’s a drink that mimics the beautiful colors of the dawn. In much the same way, so does
this Sunriser keyboard build from [crashl1445].
Built for a high-school engineering project, the build looks resplendent with its yellow case, paired with yellow, orange and pink keycaps to produce the wonderful sunrise aesthetic. The build relies on an Elite-C v4 microcontroller, an off-the-shelf device specifically designed for building custom keyboards. As you might guess from the name, it features a USB-C port, serving as a modernized alternative to the Arduino Pro Micro for custom keyboard builders. KTT Rose switches are used as per [crashl1445’s] own preference, and there’s even a rotary encoder which acts as a volume knob, installed right by the arrow keys. The case is printed in several parts on a Prusa Mk3+, as the keyboard wouldn’t fit entirely on the build plate as a single piece.
The best thing about building your own keyboard is that you can design it entirely to suit your own preferences and aesthetic; we think [crashl1445] did a great job in this regard. If you’re cooking up your own sweet keyboard build,
don’t hesitate to let us know! | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475234",
"author": "not",
"timestamp": "2022-05-18T11:11:07",
"content": "Mee. I want a full-LCD mechanical display (in the stlyle ofhttps://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/popularis/but affordable) because I´m fed up to try to remember several keyboard layouts for different languages, ... | 1,760,372,689.877364 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/18/coloring-computer-needs-no-batteries/ | Color(ing) Computer Needs No Batteries | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"coloring",
"educational"
] | While Radio Shack did have the Color Computer, we don’t think they had this in mind. [Pepepépepe] has some coloring book pages and simple rules that let you
simulate logic circuits using a crayon
. The downloadable ‘zine has hand-written instructions and several examples.
Keep in mind, this is a computer in the same way the old logic kits in the 1960s were computers. They are really demonstrations of digital logic circuits. To work the “computers”, you pick two colors, one for a square and the other for a circle. You color pathways until you reach a “nory.” The nory, which looks suspiciously like a slingshot with eyes, has a special rule. If both branches of the nory have your circle color on them, the output of the nory will be the square color. Otherwise, the color coming out is the circle color.
Obviously, this rule generates a NOR gate where the circle color is a zero and the square color is a one. Since the colors propagate down the paths, you can draw display elements including 7-segment displays and make them work.
There are a few more rules to learn and you can build a computer that even has a game pad. No kidding. Is this practical? Of course not. But it might be a fun introduction to digital logic for a smart kid, and who knows where that will lead?
It would be fun to recreate some of the old
Geniac
“computers” like this. If you like paper computers, there’s
CARDIAC
(you can even
simulate that paper computer on an FPGA
). | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475248",
"author": "Justin",
"timestamp": "2022-05-18T12:22:28",
"content": "I love it. Although I was a little confused about the Yes/No answer. It took me a minute to figure out that “highlighted” meant whichever word was different from the background color. In the picture abo... | 1,760,372,689.913178 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/17/how-the-ibm-pc-went-8-bit/ | How The IBM PC Went 8-Bit | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"8088",
"IBM PC",
"intel"
] | If you were around when the IBM PC rolled out, two things probably caught you by surprise. One is that the company that made the Selectric put that ridiculous keyboard on it. The other was that it had an 8-bit CPU onboard. It was actually even stranger than that. The PC sported an 8088 which was a 16-bit 8086 stripped down to an 8 bit external bus. You have to wonder what caused that, and [Steven Leibson] has a great post that
explains what went down
all those years ago.
Before the IBM PC, nearly all personal computers were 8-bit and had 16-bit address buses. Although 64K may have seemed enough for anyone, many realized that was going to be a brick wall fairly soon. So the answer was larger address buses and addressing modes.
Intel knew this and was working on the flagship iAPX 432. This was going to represent a radical departure from the 8080-series CPUs designed from the start for high-level languages like Ada. However, the radical design took longer than expected. The project started in 1976 but wouldn’t see the light of day until 1981. It was clear they needed something sooner, so the 8086 — a 16-bit processor clearly derived from the 8080 was born.
There were other choices, too. The Motorola 68000 was a great design, but it was expensive and not widely available when IBM was selecting a processor. TI had the TMS9900 in production, but they had bet on CPU throughput being the key to success and stuck with the same old 16-bit address bus. That processor, too, had a novel way of storing registers in main memory which was great if your CPU was slow, but as CPU speeds outpaced memory speeds, that was a losing design decision.
That still leaves the question: why the 8088 instead of the 8086? Price. IBM had a goal to pay under $5 for a CPU and Intel couldn’t meet that price with the 8086. Apparently, it wasn’t a technical problem but a contractual one. However, folding the chip to an 8-bit external bus allowed for a smaller die, lower cost, and freedom from contractual obligations that plagued the 8086. That last point was important, as the manufacturing cost wasn’t that different, but setting the price was all about paperwork.
There is a lot more to read. At the bottom of the post, you’ll find links to the source oral history transcripts from the Computer History Museum. Fascinating stuff. If you lived though it, you probably didn’t know all these details and if you didn’t, it gives a good flavor of how many choices there were in those days and how many design trades you had to make to get a product into the marketplace.
We borrowed the title graphic from [Steven’s] post and he, in turn, borrowed it from the well-known [Ken Shirriff]. | 52 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475124",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2022-05-18T05:44:44",
"content": "The 8088 is 16bit, same as the 8086. Just because it had an 8bit databus doesn’t change that. The 68008 was the same.The story I always heard, and I remember when it came along, was that memory wa... | 1,760,372,690.049905 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/17/book-teaches-gaming-math/ | Book Teaches Gaming Math | Al Williams | [
"Games"
] | [
"book",
"graphics",
"math",
"video games"
] | If we knew how much math goes into writing a video game, we might have paid more attention in math class. If you need a refresher, [Fletcher Dunn] and [Ian Parbery] have their book “3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development”
available free online
. The book was originally a paper book from 2011 with a 2002 first edition but those are out of print now. However, math is math, so regardless of the age of the book, it is worth a look. For now, the online version is a bunch of web pages, but we hear a PDF or E-reader version is forthcoming.
There’s quite a bit of discussion about vectors, matrices, linear transformations, and 3D graphics. The last part of the book covers calculus, kinematics, and parametric curves. Some of these topics will be of interest even if you don’t care about graphics but do want to learn some math with practical examples.
The writing in this book is more accessible than in your standard math class. You still probably need a little basic math background to tackle the topic, especially algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. There isn’t much about specific programming here, it is all about the math.
We miss real books. But it is great to be able to just make a few clicks and read about just about any topic. If your math interests are more binary,
check this out
. If math isn’t your thing, maybe you’d rather read about
software defined radio
. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475082",
"author": "Blue Shrimp",
"timestamp": "2022-05-18T03:00:22",
"content": "What a surprise this is!I had to do some 3D computation work ~13 years ago and this was one of the books I used back then. Have very fond memories of it, time to grab a copy and see what’s new!",
... | 1,760,372,690.095368 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/17/falling-down-the-labyrinth-with-wooden-microphone-design/ | Falling Down The Labyrinth With Wooden Microphone Design | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"cyanoacrylate",
"labyrinth",
"microphone",
"Model 77",
"neodymium",
"ribbon",
"veneer",
"wood"
] | It used to be that when we featured one of [Frank Olson]’s DIY ribbon microphone builds, it was natural to focus on the fact that he was building them almost exclusively from wood. But despite how counterintuitive it may seem, and for as many comments as we get that his microphones shouldn’t work without metal in the ribbon motors, microphones like
this wooden RCA Model 77 reproduction
both look and sound great.
But ironically, this homage features a critical piece that’s actually not made of wood. The 77’s pickup pattern was cardioid, making for a directional mic that picked up sound best from the front, thanks to an acoustic labyrinth that increased the path length for incoming sound waves. [Frank]’s labyrinth was made from epoxy resin poured into a mold made from heavy paper, creating a cylinder with multiple parallel tunnels. The tops and bottoms of adjacent tunnels were connected together, creating an acoustic path over a meter long. The ribbon motor, as close to a duplicate of the original as possible using wood, sits atop the labyrinth block’s output underneath a wood veneer shell that does its best to imitate the classic pill-shaped windscreen of the original. The video below, which of course was narrated using the mic, shows its construction in detail.
If you want to check out [Frank]’s other wooden microphones, and you should, check out the beautiful
Model 44 replica
that looks ready for [Sinatra], or
the Bk-5-like mics
he whipped up for drum kit recording. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6475043",
"author": "just passing",
"timestamp": "2022-05-17T23:37:57",
"content": "Trypophobia warning, please! *cringe*",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6475263",
"author": "limroh",
"timestamp": "2022-05-18T1... | 1,760,372,690.211552 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/17/nanovolt-meter-requires-careful-design-for-accuracys-sake/ | Nanovolt Meter Requires Careful Design For Accuracy’s Sake | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"nanovoltmeter",
"noise",
"voltmeter"
] | Measuring voltages is fairly straightforward most of the time. Simply grab any old cheap multimeter, hook up the probes, and read off the answer. If, however, you need to measure very tiny voltages, the problem gets more complex.
[Jaromir-Sukuba] designed a nanovoltmeter specifically to deal with this difficult case.
The nanovoltmeter is exactly what it sounds like: a voltmeter that is sensitive and stable enough to measure and report voltages on the scale of nanovolts. Having a tool that can do this reliably can be very useful when it comes to measuring very small resistances or working with ever-so-slight differential voltages.
The design of such an instrument is quite involved in order to reduce sources of noise and instability. The analog-to-digital converters must be of high quality, and they must be powered with their own supply to avoid excess noise. There are low-noise amplifiers and all manner of specialised subsystems required to handle the task. There’s even a 3D-printed cover to prevent airflow over a voltage reference in order to reduce noise from thermal variance.
Nonetheless, [Jaromir-Sukuba] does a great job of exploring what’s required to build a nanovoltmeter, and explains it well for an audience new to the field of such precise measurements. The resulting instrument was also capable of measurements with less than 25 nanovolts of noise peak-to-peak. It’s a great feat and those wishing to learn about how it’s done have an excellent resource to learn how.
We’ve seen other tricky measurement devices before, too. Did you know you probably already have a usable nano-ammeter?
Now you do!
[Thanks to David Gustafik for the tip!] | 25 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6474963",
"author": "Manawyrm",
"timestamp": "2022-05-17T21:09:56",
"content": "That GitHub page was a fantastic read! Highly recommended.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6474986",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "202... | 1,760,372,690.280015 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/17/when-hams-helped-polar-researchers-come-in-from-the-cold/ | When Hams Helped Polar Researchers Come In From The Cold | Al Williams | [
"History",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"antarctica",
"ham radio",
"IGY"
] | We always enjoy [The History Guy] videos, although many of them aren’t much about technology. However, when he does cover tech topics, he does it well and his recent video on how ham radio operators
assisted in operation Deep Freeze
is a great example. You can watch the video, below.
The backdrop is the International Geophysical Year (IGY) where many nations cooperated to learn more about the Earth. In particular, from 1957 to 1958 there was a push to learn more about the last unexplored corner of our planet: Antarctica. Several of the permanent bases on the icy continent today were started during the IGY.
It’s hard for modern audiences to appreciate what the state of personal communication was in 1957. There were no cell phones and if you are thinking about satellites, don’t forget that Sputnik didn’t launch until late 1957, so that wasn’t going to happen, either.
Operation Deep Freeze had ten U. S. Navy vessels that brought scientists, planes, and Seabees (slang for members of the Naval Construction Batallion) — about 1,800 people in all over several years culminating in the IGY. Of course, the Navy had radio capabilities, but it wasn’t like the Navy to let you just call home to chat. Not to mention, a little more than 100 people were left for each winter and the Navy ships went home. That’s where ham radio operators came in.
Hams would do what is called a phone patch for the people stationed in Antarctica. Some hams also send radiograms to and from the crew’s families. One teen named Jules was especially dedicated to making connections to Antarctica. We can’t verify it, but one commenter says that Jules was so instrumental in connecting his father in Antarctica to his fiancee that when his parents married, Jules was their best man.
Jules and his brother dedicated themselves to keeping a morale pipeline from New Jersey to the frozen stations. He figures prominently in recollections of many of the written accounts from people who wintered at the nascent bases. Apparently, many of the men even traveled to New Jersey later to visit Jules. What happened to him? Watch the end of the video and you’ll find out.
While being a ham today doesn’t offer this kind of excitement, hams still
contribute to science
. Want to get in on the action? [Dan Maloney] can tell you
how to get started on the cheap
. | 26 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6474923",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2022-05-17T19:25:14",
"content": "But it continued. Thefirst ham magazineI ever saw, QST for April 1971, had a ham in Antarctica on the cover. He’d done so many phone patches that they gave him a trip down there to see things.Whe... | 1,760,372,690.346182 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/17/kindle-epub-and-amazons-love-of-reinventing-wheels/ | Kindle, EPUB, And Amazon’s Love Of Reinventing Wheels | Tom Nardi | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Kindle hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"amazon",
"ebook",
"ereader",
"file format",
"kindle"
] | Last last month, a post from the relatively obscure
Good e-Reader
claimed that
Amazon would finally allow the Kindle to read EPUB files
. The story was picked up by all the major tech sites, and for a time, there was much rejoicing. After all, it was a feature that owners have been asking for since the Kindle was first released in 2007. But rather than supporting the open eBook format, Amazon had always insisted in coming up with their own proprietary formats to use on their readers. Accordingly, many users have turned to third party programs which can reliably convert their personal libraries over to whatever Amazon format their particular Kindle is most compatible with.
Native support for EPUB would make using the Kindle a lot less of a hassle for many folks, but alas, it was not to be. It wasn’t long before the original post was updated to clarify that Amazon had simply added support for EPUB to their
Send to Kindle
service. Granted this is still an improvement, as it represents a relatively low-effort way to get the open format files on your personal device; but in sending the files through the service they would be converted to Amazon’s KF8/AZW3 format, the result of which may not always be what you expected. At the same time the
Send to Kindle
documentation noted that support for AZW and MOBI files would be removed
later on this year, as the older formats weren’t compatible with all the features of the latest Kindle models.
If you think this is a lot of unnecessary confusion just to get plain-text files to display on the world’s most popular ereader, you aren’t alone. Users shouldn’t have to wade through an alphabet soup of oddball file formats when there’s already an accepted industry standard in EPUB. But given that it’s the reality when using one of Amazon’s readers, this seems a good a time as any for a brief rundown of the different ebook formats, and a look at how we got into this mess in the first place.
EPUB
The history of the EPUB format can be tracked back to 1999, with the version 1.0 release of the Open eBook Publication Structure (OEBPS). Used by some of the very first dedicated electronic readers from the likes of Sony and Intel, it essentially consisted of a manifested ZIP archive that contained pages written in a form of XHTML, with CSS used for styling. OEBPS went through several revisions over the years, and in 2007 it became the official technical standard of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). At that point it was renamed to EPUB, short for Electronic Publication.
EPUB continued to evolve over the years, and in 2016 the IDPF merged with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in an attempt to bring the publishing industry inline with the latest in web development. The current version of the
EPUB format (3.2) was released in May of 2019
, and offers features such as the ability for Internet-connected devices to load fonts and other content from outside the container file itself.
While the 3.x branch has introduced some fairly large changes in the core format to better handle multimedia content, EPUB can still ultimately still be thought of as a relatively simple web page contained in a ZIP file. As they are exceptionally easy to parse and render, you can find EPUB reader applications on even very low-end devices.
It’s also worth noting that, while the EPUB format does
allow
for Digital Rights Management (DRM), it is not part of the standard. That means if a vendor wants to implement DRM in EPUB, they have to figure out how to do it themselves. In theory this could lead to incompatibility issues between vendor-specific solutions, but in practice, most people who are using EPUBs are doing so specifically because they are DRM-free.
MOBI/AZW
Even older than EPUB, MOBI has its origins in the PalmDOC format from 1996. Originally conceived as a way of storing large text files on the Palm Pilot, the format offered little in the way of formatting outside the ability to mark the start and end points of paragraphs. It did however offer basic bookmarking capability, which in some cases was used to offer a rudimentary table of contents. Being that PalmDOC was a variation of the standard “Palm Database” file, it also featured the ability to store various bits of metadata in a standardized header, such as the author name, book title, and current reading position.
MobiPocket Reader on Palm OS
While suitable enough for the low-resolution displays of the early Palm Pilots, the lack of any real formatting support in PalmDOC became a liability as the hardware improved. In 2000 MobiPocket, developers of ebook reader applications on Palm, Symbian, and later BlackBerry devices, decided to take matters into their own hands and expand PalmDOC. They added an HTML-like markdown language, improved support for images, and as it was an open format, even borrowed a bit from OEBPS. Since they didn’t have the authority to call it an update to the original PalmDOC, they dubbed their creation MOBI.
The story might have stopped here if it wasn’t for the fact that in 2005, Amazon purchased MobiPocket, and in turn the rights to MOBI. But rather than use the format as-is for the Kindle, they added a new DRM scheme and cranked the format’s LZ77 compression to the maximum. As the first-gen Kindle only offered a relatively meager 250 MB of onboard storage and was limited to downloading new titles over a 3G cellular connection, they wanted to shave off as many bytes as possible.
This tweaked version of MOBI, which became the standard format for Amazon’s ebook empire, was dubbed AZW. From here on out Amazon essentially starts using AZW as a blanket term for their ebook containers, and the actual formats underneath start getting a bit blurry. In the early days, it was possible to come across other similarly named file types:
AZW1
Known officially as Topaz, this proprietary Amazon format has little relation to MOBI/AZW beyond a shared DRM scheme and similar metadata header. In addition to supporting larger images compared to the earlier formats, it was unique in that each title could include its own fonts and glyphs rather than relying on what was built into the Kindle itself. This made it well suited for old books or non-English works, as it could better retain the original text and style.
AZW2
This actually isn’t an ebook format at all, so don’t be surprised if you’ve never ran across one. Rather, this is a container file for executable Kindle applications and games.
KF8/AZW3
With the release of the first Kindle Fire tablet in 2011, Amazon needed a new format that could handle multimedia content. The answer was KF8, which is essentially a combination of EPUB and MOBI. In fact, it specifically picks up some of the EPUB 3.x features such as support for HTML5 and CSS3. New support for both fixed-layout pages and SVG images makes this format well suited for comic books, which was a big selling point for the large color display of the Kindle Fire.
Rather than maintaining two different file formats, Amazon decided to move all of their readers over to AZW3 and make it the new standard for the marketplace. While the electronic paper Kindles may not necessarily benefit from the features offered by the new format, all of them beyond the first and second generation are able to read them thanks to redundant MOBI header information which is kept specifically for backwards compatibility.
KFX/AZW8
With the release of the Kindle Paperwhite 3 in 2015, Amazon rolled out their latest format, KFX. Technical information about KFX is a bit hard to come by, as it appears Amazon developed it in-house to be their “ultimate” book format. Some of the new improvements include an enhanced typesetting engine, additional fonts, and support for JPEG XR images. It also rolls in support for video and interactivity, theoretically allowing the same format to be used for both books and software applications.
But perhaps the most obvious change was the enhanced DRM, which has caused plenty of headaches for users who wish to read Amazon purchased ebooks on other devices. At this point the format and DRM is understood well enough that it can be handled by third-party software, but it takes additional steps and intermediary tools that aren’t required for AZW3 content.
It’s generally recommended that anyone who wishes to maintain their own local library of ebook files should avoid this format altogether — though as more and more of Amazon’s library switches over, that may mean you need to purchase your books elsewhere.
Alexandria On Your Hard Drive
If all you ever do is read Amazon-purchased books on your Kindle, then you’ve probably never had to worry about any of this. To their credit, Amazon has largely perfected the experience of buying and consuming electronic books — there is, after all, a reason the Kindle has become the defacto ereader. All this technical shuffling about is hidden from view, and for the most part, you just tap the book you want to read and get on with your life.
But for those of us who want to source their books from multiple marketplaces, keep an offline copy of their purchased books, or read their Amazon books on a non-Amazon reader, things can get a bit messy. The best advice I can give you, if you’ve managed to get this far without hearing it already, is to grab a copy of
Kovid Goyal’s phenomenal
Calibre
.
This cross-platform GPLv3 program lets you build a format-agnostic virtual library that lives on your local computer, and seamlessly performs device-specific file conversion when uploading to your reader. It might not be quite as easy as spending your days in Amazon’s walled garden, but for users who demand a bit more control over their digital content, it’s a price worth paying. | 48 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6474894",
"author": "Urgon",
"timestamp": "2022-05-17T18:20:08",
"content": "When I’ve got my first smartphone, Nokia E50, I used program called Mobipocket Reader, and PC software, Mobipocket Creator to create some .prc ebooks. I also used this on my next phone, HTC S740, but after ... | 1,760,372,690.641414 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/17/led-backlight-brings-vibrant-colors-to-classic-palm-pdas/ | LED Backlight Brings Vibrant Colors To Classic Palm PDAs | Robin Kearey | [
"handhelds hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"backlight",
"led backlight",
"palm",
"palm iiic"
] | Back in the days before the widespread adoption of smartphones, Palm was the market leader in PDAs. If you had one of those you’ll probably remember taking notes by writing those funky “Graffiti” characters and tapping your stylus onto, usually, a green monochrome screen. Some models even came with a battery-hungry backlight, but for the ultimate display experience you had to buy the Palm IIIc that came with a backlit full-colour display.
While revolutionary for its time, it was hampered by the technology available: the CCFL backlight took a second to start up, and even with the screen at full brightness it was rather dim by today’s standards. [TobleMiner] fixed these issues by designing
a module to retrofit an LED backlight into your Palm IIIc
.
The new backlight consists of a long, thin PCB designed to fit exactly where the CCFL tube sits. The PCB holds twenty-one white LEDs along with their current-limiting resistors to provide even illumination from top to bottom. A little MOSFET soldered onto the mainboard ensures the new backlight also correctly responds to the device’s “brightness” setting. [TobleMiner] recommends to remove the bulky CCFL transformer from the Palm’s mainboard to disable the corresponding circuitry and save a bit of weight.
The end result is understandably hard to capture on camera, but apparently gives the screen more vibrant colours. In any case, this might be a useful hack for anyone with a Palm IIIc with a broken backlight, though we can’t remember if that was a common issue. If you’re among those who still use original Palm devices, you might like
this Palm-compatible Bluetooth keyboard
. Don’t have a classic PDA? You can also
run PalmOS on modern custom hardware
. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6474853",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2022-05-17T15:46:36",
"content": "They have backlights? I think I missed that.I’ve been pondering adding an LED or two to a portable CD player, since the small readout is hard to read withkut a flashlight.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,690.497112 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/17/things-are-getting-rusty-in-kernel-land/ | Things Are Getting Rusty In Kernel Land | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Current Events",
"Linux Hacks",
"Original Art",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"c++",
"linux",
"rust"
] | There is gathering momentum around the idea of adding Rust to the Linux kernel. Why exactly is that a big deal, and what does this mean for the rest of us? The Linux kernel has been just C and assembly for its entire lifetime. A big project like the kernel has a great deal of shared tooling around making its languages work, so adding another one is quite an undertaking. There’s also the project culture developed around the language choice. So why exactly are the grey-beards of kernel development even entertaining the idea of adding Rust? To answer in a single line, it’s because C was designed in 1971, to run on the minicomputers at Bell Labs. If you want to shoot yourself in the foot, C will hand you the loaded firearm.
On the other hand, if you want to write a kernel, C is a great language for doing low-level coding. Direct memory access? Yep. Inline assembly? Sure. Runs directly on the metal, with no garbage collection or virtual machines in the way? Absolutely. But all the things that make C great for kernel programming also make C dangerous for kernel programming.
Now I hear your collective keyboards clacking in consternation: “It’s possible to write safe C code!” Yes, yes it is possible. It’s just very easy to mess up, and when you mess up in a kernel, you have security vulnerabilities. There’s also some things that are objectively
terrible
about C, like undefined behavior. C compilers do their best to do the right thing with cursed code like
i++ + i++;
or
a[i] = i++;
. But that’s almost certainly not going to do what you want it to, and even worse, it may
sometimes
do the right thing.
Rust seems to be gaining popularity. There are some ambitious projects out there, like
rewriting coreutils in Rust
. Many other standard applications are getting a Rust rewrite. It’s fairly inevitable that the collection of Rust developers started to ask, could we invade the kernel next? This was pitched for a Linux Plumbers Conference, and
the mailing list response
was cautiously optimistic. If Rust could be added without breaking things, and without losing the very things that makes Rust useful, then yes it would be interesting.
Why Rust
So what makes Rust so interesting? There are two main answers here. First, it’s a modern language with a strong memory-safety guarantee. (There’s a caveat here, and we’ll cover unsafe code later.) Something around two thirds of all security vulnerabilities are a result of memory handling bugs, and Rust pretty much eliminates those. A second bonus, Rust has some of the niceties we’ve come to appreciate in modern languages, like an easy-to-use
STRING
type built-in to the standard library, and some handy functions for common scenarios like string comparison.
The other answer is that Rust is an easy fit with C code and kernel programming. Rust does it’s magic in the compiler. The code you write is what actually runs, without an interpreter or garbage collection trying to be helpful. Rust hasn’t overdosed on Object Oriented patterns, but meshes nicely with the C-style structs already used in the kernel. Even the stack model is very similar to C.
There’s one problem with Rust’s memory-safe guarantee — it’s impossible to write a kernel that is formally memory-safe. A kernel has to write to unallocated memory, do weird pointer math, and other seemingly bizarre things to actually make our computers work. This doesn’t work well with a language that tries to guarantee that memory manipulations are safe. How do you write kernel code with Rust, then? Rust has added the
unsafe
keyword, allowing use of direct memory access and other such techniques that don’t work with Rusts’s memory guarantees. Keep the potential problems together, and it makes auditing easier.
There’s at least one other language that may come to mind as an incremental update to C that tries to do some of these things: C++. Surely this would have been even a better fit, right? Kernel devs have
some strong feelings about that idea
. To put it gently, none of the improvements in C++ are useful in the context of the kernel, and some of the other changes just get in the way.
What’s the Plan?
So are we about to see the kernel completely rewritten in Rust? Not likely. The kernel development process is painstakingly conservative, so the initial introduction of Rust is going to be done in the least obtrusive way possible — driver code. As kernel second-in-command [Greg Kroah-Hartman] put it, “drivers are probably the first place for an attempt like this as they are the ‘end leafs’ of the tree of dependencies in the kernel source. They depend on core kernel functionality, but nothing depends on them.”
In practice, this would mean that tooling, documentation, and example code would be merged into the kernel right away. At some point in the future, one of the interested parties, like Google, would start writing new drivers in Rust. Google seems to be very interested in converting parts of Android to Rust, likely in an attempt to thwart the continued pwnage of their OS from the likes of the NSO group. There’s a useful example driver in Rust
on the Google Security Blog
. Another interesting connection is that [Miguel Ojeda], lead developer of the Rust for Linux effort,
is now employed full time by Prossimo
for that purpose. Prossimo is an arm of the Internet Security Research Group, which is also famous for leading Let’s Encrypt. Funding for [Ojeda]’s work was provided by Google.
So where are we now?
Version 6 of the Rust patches
were just sent to the kernel mailing list. There have been a couple of very minor change requests, but most notably developers have begun calling for the patches to be pulled into the 5.19 kernel once its merge window opens. 5.18-rc6 was just released, so in two to three weeks we should see that kernel mint a final release, and the 5.19 merge window open. That’s right, there’s a very good chance we’ll see Rust added to the Linux kernel in about three weeks!
Once it finally lands, expect to see a simple driver that actually makes use of the support in the following version. So if 5.19 sees Rust support, a driver written in rust will probably happen in 5.20. As hinted at above,
Google is one of the very interested parties
in the Rust for Linux effort. It’s likely that some Android related code will be ported to Rust, as a part of Google’s continual effort to improve the security of their mobile ecosystem.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Rust in Linux is almost certainly going to happen, but is that guaranteed to be a good thing? There are a few possible downsides to consider. First off, the interface between C and Rust is a likely place for unanticipated bugs to crop up. It’s new code, some of it generated automatically, doing something novel — there will certainly be surprises. That’s not really any more of a problem than any other new code. Bugs get fixed, problems get ironed out.
What may be more of an issue is the added complexity of debugging problems when there is another language to consider. Until now, the kernel has enjoyed the advantage that it’s all in C and all the programmers working on it are familiar with that language. Add a second language, and now there’s C programmers, Rust programmers, and the few that are actually proficient in both. There’s yet another compiler that could possibly introduce errors, and another toolchain to manage.
Lastly, there’s the danger that it just doesn’t catch on. It may be that the kernel community collectively shrugs, and goes on writing code in C, and the Rust support bit-rots. This is the least problematic issue, because the backing of big players like Google make this unlikely, and even if Rust dies on the vine, it’s easy to remove the code.
Are any of the above issues likely to be deal breakers? Probably not. The addition of Rust will change the way kernel development happens a bit, and kernel maintainers will have to brush up on their Rust knowledge. The potential benefits seem to outweigh the downsides. Torvalds seems to have accepted the idea of Rust in the kernel, once the last few wrinkles are ironed out. We’re looking forward to seeing Rust in Linux mature, and we’ll bring you the rest of the story once that happens. | 163 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "6474835",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2022-05-17T14:50:32",
"content": ">cursed code like …Why would you even write code like that? It looks like someone’s just trying to be too clever for no reason.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comm... | 1,760,372,691.074827 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/17/transparent-framedeck-is-clearly-capable/ | Transparent Framedeck Is Clearly Capable | Kristina Panos | [
"Cyberdecks"
] | [
"acrylic",
"custom keyboard",
"Elite-C",
"framework",
"Framework laptop"
] | When the universe tells you to build a cyberdeck, then build a cyberdeck you must. The lucky [Richard Sutherland] got an email from user-serviceable laptop purveyors Framework about the availability of their main board for use as a single-board computer. They agreed to send him a laptop and some extra modules as long as he promised to build something awesome with it. There was just one fabulous caveat:
whatever design he came up with had to be released to the public
.
[Richard] took this capable board with four USB ports and built an all-in-one that pays homage to the slab-style computers like the TRS-80 Model 100, which [Richard] really wanted as a kid. It looks lovely in layered acrylic and brass, and even though we pretty much always think that see-through is the best design choice you can make, transparency really works here. Tucked into those layers is a custom 36-key split running on an Elite-C microcontroller with Gazzew Boba U4 Silent-but-tactile switches, and a trackball in between. Be sure to
take the build tour
and check out all the process pictures.
Acrylic looks great and seems great on paper, but what about actual use? [Richard] put rubbery
SKUF feet
on the front, and a pair of repositionable feet on the back. Not only will it stay in place on the table, but he’ll be able to see the screen better and type at an angle greater than zero.
As cool as it would be to have Framedeck in the apocalypse, it will be hard to hide and could get looted. You might want to
build something a bit more concealed
. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6474738",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2022-05-17T11:13:12",
"content": "I am always a bit wary of acrylic as it is (or I percieve it as) more brittle than ABS or other common enclosure plastics.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,372,690.798833 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/17/building-petahertz-logic-with-lasers-and-graphene/ | Building Petahertz Logic With Lasers And Graphene | Al Williams | [
"Laser Hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"graphene",
"laser"
] | There was a time when we thought a 50 MHz 486 was something to get excited about. In comparison, the computer this post was written on clocks in at about 3.8 GHz, which these days, isn’t an especially fast machine. But researchers at the University of Rochester and the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg want to blow the doors off even the fastest modern CPUs. By using precise lasers and graphene, they are developing
logic that can operate at nearly 1 petahertz
(that’s 1,000,000 GHz).
These logic gates use a pair of very short-burst lasers to excite electrical current in graphene and gold junctions. Illuminating the junctions very briefly creates charge carriers formed by electrons excited by the laser. These carriers continue to move after the laser pulse is gone. However, there are also virtual charge carriers that appear during the pulse and then disappear after. Together, these carriers induce a current in the graphene. More importantly, altering the laser allows you to control the direction and relative composition of the carriers. That is, they can create a current of one type or the other or a combination of both.
This is the key to creating logic gates. By controlling the real and virtual currents they can be made to add together or cancel each other out. You can imagine that two inputs that cancel each other out would be a sort of NAND gate. Signals that add could be an OR or AND gate depending on the output threshold.
[Ignacio Franco], the lead researcher, started working on this problem in 2007 when he started thinking about generating electrical currents with lasers. It would be 2013 before experiments bore out his plan and now it appears that the technique can be used to make super fast logic gates.
We often pretend our logic circuits don’t have any propagation delays even though they do. If you could measure it in femtoseconds, maybe that’s finally practical. Then again, sometimes
delays are useful
. You have to wonder
how much the scope will cost
that can work on this stuff. | 19 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6474667",
"author": "spiritplumber",
"timestamp": "2022-05-17T08:35:10",
"content": "https://paeantosmac.wordpress.com/2015/08/13/technology-optical-computers/I wonder what this will allow… very simple, very fast PD controllers that don’t need the integral term because they react ju... | 1,760,372,690.548931 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/16/repairing-an-hdmi-adapter-doesnt-go-so-well/ | Repairing An HDMI Adapter Doesn’t Go So Well | Al Williams | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"hdmi",
"repair",
"retrocomputing"
] | [Adrian] has a lot of retrocomputers, so he uses an RGB to HDMI converter to drive modern monitors. In particular, he has a box that uses a programmable logic chip to read various RGB signals and ships them to a Raspberry Pi Zero to drive the HDMI output. Sounds great until, of course,
something goes wrong
.
A converter that had worked stopped working due to a bad board with the programmable logic chip on it. Unlike the retrocomputers, this board has little tiny surface mount components. A little analysis suggested that some of the chip pins were not accepting inputs.
The Xilinx device has 5V-tolerant inputs and [Adrian] thinks that 5V inputs may have fried the inputs which can happen if there is 5V on the pin and the device isn’t powered up. The plan was to remove the bad chip and replace it with a new one.
As SMD parts go, the Xilinx chip isn’t particularly tiny, but if you are more accustomed to working on 1980s computers, it can be a bit of a challenge. [Adrian] wisely used a lot of flux and hot air to remove the part. We might have covered the adjacent components with Kapton tape to avoid taking off more than we wanted.
Another idea is that if you are sure the part is bad, it is sometimes easier to cut all the leads off, dispose of the chip, and then remove each pin one by one. He got it, though. We might have cleaned the pads before resoldering them, but [Adrian] elected to just add fresh solder and that did work but the excess solder made it harder to place the new chip.
It took a few tries, but persistence is the key. Luckily, the board was high quality and took a lot of heat as well as the part. If you are timid about doing SMD work, you might find [Adrian’s] journey inspirational. It does help that he has a great microscope. In the end, it worked despite some problems with the video capture causing some confusion on colors.
This isn’t really a tutorial on SMD rework, but more of a first-time diary. If you want something more instructional, check out
[Bil Herd’s] post
. Or, spend
an hour with [Moto Geek]
. | 27 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6474578",
"author": "SteveS",
"timestamp": "2022-05-17T06:08:54",
"content": "ChipQuik is your friendJust be make sure to get it *all* off the board before you put down the new part",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6474586",
... | 1,760,372,690.858581 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/16/can-you-hear-me-now-lunar-edition/ | Can You Hear Me Now? Lunar Edition | Al Williams | [
"Space"
] | [
"apollo",
"ken shirriff",
"space"
] | Despite what it looks like in the movies, it is hard to communicate with astronauts from Earth. There are delays, and space vehicles don’t usually have a lot of excess power. Plus everything is moving and Doppler shifting and Faraday rotating. Even today, it is tricky. But how did Apollo manage to send back TV, telemetry, and voice back in 1969? [Ken Shirriff] and friends tell us part of the story in a recent post where he looks at the
Apollo premodulation processor
.
Things like weight and volume are always at a premium in a spacecraft, as is power. When you look at pictures of this solid box that weighs over 14 pounds, you’ll be amazed at how much is crammed into a relatively tiny spot. Remember, if this box was flying in 1969 it had to be built much earlier so there’s no way to expect dense ICs and modern packaging. There’s not even a printed circuit board. The components are attached to metal pegs in a point-to-point fashion. The whole thing lived near the bottom of the Command Module’s lower equipment bay.
The processor, or PMP, played a key role in multiplexing different streams in different configurations and passing them to (and from) the onboard S-band transmitter. Inside the box, [Ken] found four subassemblies nicely labeled and connected to a thin backplane. Along with discrete components, the modules also employed off-the-shelf assemblies that predated ICs and offered functions like filters or oscillators in one convenient package.
One thing that further complicated the design was the need for redundancy. For example, there are two switching regulators inside — yep, a switching regulator in a piece of gear from the 60’s — and the crew could select between the two power supplies.
[Ken] takes us through each module. The voice and data detector module extracted voice on a 30 kHz FM subcarrier. There’s also a bi-phase modulator, voice clipping, and a relay module to pass signals from the lunar module back to Earth.
If you want a closer look at the Apollo comm system, [CuriousMarc]
has a series about it
and was part of the group and stripped down this PMP. Radio signals are fun, of course, but the best footage came back as film. However,
modern technology has sharpened up some of that old footage
. | 9 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6474729",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2022-05-17T10:57:21",
"content": "Not for the first time I am left in awe that they managed to get everything working, and keep it working.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6474742",
... | 1,760,372,692.711207 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/16/network-time-protocol-on-the-esp32/ | Network Time Protocol On The ESP32 | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"clock",
"ESP32",
"internet",
"library",
"microcontroller",
"micropython",
"network time",
"ntp",
"python",
"time"
] | Network Time Protocol (NTP) is one of the best ways to keep networked computers synchronized to the same time. It’s simple, lightweight, and not only allows computers to maintain a time standard together, but it also allows some computer manufacturers to save some money on hardware costs. The Raspberry Pi is perhaps the most well-known example of a low-cost computer without the extra expense of a real-time clock (RTC). While the Pi sets up NTP essentially automatically, other microcontrollers like the ESP32 don’t, but
it is possible to configure them to use this time standard with some work
.
For this project the MicroPython implementation for the ESP32 is required.
MicroPython
is a way of running Python code on microcontrollers or other embedded systems without all of the overhead that Python would normally require. Luckily enough, the NTP libraries are built right in so once MicroPython is running on the ESP32 it’s nearly as easy as calling the library. Of course you will have to make sure there is an internet connection, and then grab the time, sync it to the machine, and then set the timezone.
For a bonus exercise, the project’s creator [Bhavesh] suggests attempting to configure Daylight Savings Time, although
this can be a surprisingly difficult problem
to solve. In the meantime, there are a few other ways of installing a clock on a microcontroller like this one. An
RTC module
is an obvious choice, but you can also get
incredibly accurate time by using a GPS module
as well. | 29 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6474253",
"author": "Bruce Perens",
"timestamp": "2022-05-16T23:15:12",
"content": "I have an ESP-32 SSNTP implementation as part of Generic Main for esp-idf, athttps://github.com/BrucePerens/rigcontrol/tree/main/components/generic_main. This sets the time and you can set the timezo... | 1,760,372,693.432597 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/16/gaming-mouse-becomes-digital-camera/ | Gaming Mouse Becomes Digital Camera | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"g402",
"gaming",
"gui",
"image",
"linux",
"logitech",
"mouse",
"stm32"
] | Ever since the world decided to transition from mechanical ball mice to optical mice, we have been blessed with computer pointing devices that don’t need regular cleaning and have much better performance than their ancestors. They do this by using what is essentially a tiny digital camera to monitor changes in motion. As we’ve seen before, it is possible to convert this mechanism into an actual camera, but until now we haven’t seen something
like this on a high-performance mouse designed for FPS gaming
.
For this project [Ankit] is disassembling the Logitech G402, a popular gaming mouse with up to 4000
dpi
. Normally this is processed internally in the mouse to translate movement into cursor motion, but this mouse conveniently has a familiar STM32 processor with an SPI interface already broken out on the PCB that could be quickly connected to in order to gather image data. [Ankit] created a custom USB vendor-specific endpoint and wrote a Linux kernel module to parse the data into a custom GUI program that can display the image captured by the mouse sensor on-screen.
It’s probably best to not attempt this project if you plan to re-use the mouse, as the custom firmware appears to render the mouse useless as an actual mouse. But as a proof-of-concept project this high-performance mouse does work fairly well as a camera, albeit with a very low resolution by modern digital camera standards. It is much improved on
older mouse-camera builds we’ve seen
, though, thanks to the high performance sensors in gaming mice. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6474174",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2022-05-16T21:40:34",
"content": "There are programs floating around the internet that let you see the raw image from optical mice. They make interesting random number generators, not to mention text readers. Stitch all the images together... | 1,760,372,692.662076 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/16/asahi-gpu-hacking/ | Asahi GPU Hacking | Jonathan Bennett | [
"computer hacks",
"Linux Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"asahi",
"gpu",
"Mesa"
] | [Alyssa Rosenzweig] has been tirelessly working on reverse engineering the GPU built into Apple’s M1 architecture as part of the Asahi Linux effort. If you’re not familiar, that’s the project adding support to the Linux kernel and userspace for the Apple M1 line of products. She has made great progress, and even got primitive rendering working with her own open source code, just over a year ago.
Trying to mature the driver, however,
has hit a snag
. For complex rendering, something in the GPU breaks, and the frame is simply missing chunks of content. Some clever testing discovered the exact failure trigger — too much total vertex data. Put simply, it’s “the number of vertices (geometry complexity) times amount of data per vertex (‘shading’ complexity).” That… almost sounds like a buffer filling up, but on the GPU itself. This isn’t a buffer that the driver directly interacts with, so all of this sleuthing has to be done blindly. The Apple driver doesn’t have corrupted renders like this, so what’s going on?
[Alyssa] gives up a quick crash-course on GPU design, primarily the difference between desktop GPUs using dedicated memory, and and mobile GPUs with unified memory. The M1 falls into that second category, using a tilebuffer to cache render results while building a frame. That tilebuffer is a fixed size. There’s the overflow that crashes the frame rendering. So how is the driver supposed to handle this? The traditional answer is to just allocate a bigger buffer, but that’s not how the M1 works. Instead, when the buffer reaches full, the GPU triggers a partial render, which eats the data in the buffer. The problem is that the partial render is getting sent to the screen rather than getting properly blended with the rest of the render. Why? Back to capturing the commands used by Apple’s driver.
The driver does something odd, it sets two separate load and store programs. Knowing that the render buffer gets moved around mid-render, this starts to make sense. One function is for a partial render, the other for the final. Omit setting up one of these, and when the GPU needs the missing function, it de-references a null pointer and rendering explodes. So, supply the missing functions, get the configuration just right, and rendering completes correctly. Finally! Victory never tastes so sweet, as when it comes after chasing down a mystifying bug like this.
Need more Asahi Linux in your life?
[Hector Martin] did an interview on FLOSS Weekly
just this past week, giving us the rundown on the project. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6474086",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2022-05-16T19:37:26",
"content": "The explanation seems a bit lacking.It sounds like the M1 is a primitive binning (aka “tiled”) architecture with an on-chip tile buffer. In a “regular” rendering pipeline, each primitive is processed ful... | 1,760,372,692.61409 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/16/striping-a-disk-drive-the-1970-way/ | Striping A Disk Drive The 1970 Way | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Retrocomputing",
"Slider"
] | [
"ibm",
"mainframe",
"retrocomputing"
] | These days, mass storage for computers is pretty simple. It either uses a rotating disk or else it is solid state. There are a few holdouts using tape, too, but compared to how much there used to be, tape is all but dead. But it wasn’t that long ago that there were many kinds of mass storage. Tapes, disks, drums, punched cards, paper tape, and even stranger things. Perhaps none were quite so strange though as the
IBM 2321 Data Cell drive
— something IBM internally called MARS.
What is a data cell you might ask? A data cell was a mass storage device from IBM in 1964 that could store about 400 megabytes using magnetic strips that looked something like about a foot of photographic film. The strips resided inside a drum that could rotate. When you needed a record, the drum would rotate the strip you needed to the working part and an automated process would remove the strip in question, wrap it around a read/write head and then put it back when it was done.
Needless to say, these didn’t catch on. Tape drives were fine for most things and disk drives would soon be cheaper, dooming the 2321 to be a historical curiosity.
Given the limitations of the day, though, the solution was clever. Each strip was a bit more than two inches wide and 13 inches long. There were 200 strips on each drum and a 20-track head that could move to one of five positions, meaning each strip held 100 tracks of data. For high storage needs, you could connect multiple devices together.
The drum was like a very tall slide projector carrying magnetic strips instead of optical slides
It is hard to see how 200 strips fit in the drum if you look at the pictures. You have to look at the drawing from the
IBM manual
that makes it clear. The drum is really made up of 10 cells. Each cell has two subcells of 10 strips. The physical arrangement is like an old carousel slide projector. The strips are like very thin slices of pie and the machine sucks one particular strip into a fixed read write head.
Sure, it seems like a bit of a Rube Goldberg, but consider this. A similar IBM disk drive from the day held less than 1/50th of what the data cell could hold. If you loaded a control unit with eight drums, it would be the same as over 440 IBM2311 disk drives. Don’t forget, you’d need upwards of 50 controllers for the disk drives, too. The disk drives, of course, were faster, but not by a lot. The 2311 had an access time of 85 mS as opposed to the data cell clocking in at about 600 mS worst-case although if the stars and the strips aligned it could be as fast as 95 mS.
Tape cartridge for the IBM 3850
If you think these were noisy, you are right. They also took a special oil to lubricate all the workings. Apparently [Nerding] had
a chance to work with one of these back in the day
. The computer was granting and denying credit authorization and it kept getting hung up. It turned out that sharing these data cells was risky. One program would move the drum and another program would move it again before the first one could read if the programs were accessing opposite sides of the drum.
IBM also produced the 3850 that could store up to 472 GB on the IBM System/370. This was a very similar idea, but the magnetic tape was not in strips but in small cartridges that held about 50 MB each. This was more like an automated tape machine than a disk drive, though, but it still shows that disks took a while to completely overtake tape.
IBM’s diagram of the read/write head
We have a mild urge to build a working replica. Sure, there’s some precision involved in lining up on 1.8 degrees but that number sure has a familiar ring to it if you build 3D printers or CNC machines. A typical stepper motor just happens to make 200 full steps per revolution. Go figure. The other thing that would be hard to do accurately is handling that flimsy film. The film itself is, according to IBM, 0.005 inches thick. Still, you’d think you could figure something out.
We’d settle for an
emulator
, especially if it had a graphical simulation. While we may have IBM to thank for popularizing tape storage, we can thank
Bing Crosby
for making audiotape a thing. | 38 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473969",
"author": "johnkabat",
"timestamp": "2022-05-16T17:14:14",
"content": "Ahah, the fun when putting the strip back and the drum moved. Instant crepe paper!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6474048",
"author": "Jerry",... | 1,760,372,693.30516 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/16/the-hair-dryer-monitor-fix/ | The Hair Dryer Monitor Fix | Al Williams | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"ldo regulator",
"repair"
] | [Johnny] had a monitor that he was particularly fond of. The whole monitor appeared dead, and he decided to open it up and find out what could be wrong. He wound up fixing it — sort of —
using a hairdryer
. While we think his explanation of the problem is unlikely, we hate to armchair quarterback, and we applaud that he opened it up and got it working.
When something is dead, it is always a good idea to check the power and power supply, but that didn’t pan out in this case. In fact, the power supply board inside had what looked like reasonable voltage values throughout. The problem had to be something more subtle.
There are a pair of low dropout regulators on the interface board, and [Johnny] suspected that one of them had gone bad. We didn’t fully understand his paragraph about LDOs getting old and not being able to be re-enabled with the quiescent current if the component isn’t hot enough. On the other hand, heating the components up with a hairdryer seemed to fix them. We suspect it may just be a failing solder joint, but regardless of the explanation, it works.
Apparently, the problem occasionally occurs again, and heating the spot on the case next to the regulator fixes it. Without seeing it firsthand, it is hard to be sure what’s going on, but we are still going to bet on a finicky solder joint. If you want to argue for or against either hypothesis, we are sure there will be plenty of discussion in the comments.
There was a time when it was easy to work on consumer gear and it was relatively easy to get the schematics. These days everything is tiny, hard to replace if you can find the replacements, and service documentation is rare. But you can still get lucky sometimes. You just have to try.
We’ve noticed a trend of
hair care products
sneaking into repairs. Sometimes repairs can seem mysterious, like an infamous case of
less being more
. | 52 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473882",
"author": "Toasts",
"timestamp": "2022-05-16T15:23:35",
"content": "Not the same issue, but I once fixed a dead monitor by putting the logic plate on a toast oven. I figured that the problem were some brittle solder joints somewhere on the board, so I cranked up the temper... | 1,760,372,693.102708 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/16/silence-of-the-ipods-reflecting-on-the-ever-shifting-landscape-of-personal-media-consumption/ | Silence Of The IPods: Reflecting On The Ever-Shifting Landscape Of Personal Media Consumption | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"ipod hacks",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"ipod",
"personal media player",
"pmp"
] | On October 23rd of 2001, the first Apple iPod was launched. It wasn’t the first Personal Media Player (PMP), but as with many things Apple the iPod would go on to provide the benchmark for what a PMP should do, as well as what they should look like. While few today remember the PMP trailblazers like
Diamond’s Rio devices
, it’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t know what an ‘iPod’ is.
Even as Microsoft, Sony and others tried to steal the PMP crown, the iPod remained the irrefutable market leader, all the while gaining more and more features such as video playback and a touch display. Yet despite this success, in 2017 Apple discontinued its audio-only iPods (Nano and Shuffle), and as of May 10th, 2022, the Apple iPod Touch was discontinued. This marks the end of Apple’s foray into the PMP market, and makes one wonder whether the PMP market of the late 90s is gone, or maybe just has transformed into something else.
After all, with everyone and their pet hamster having a smartphone nowadays, what need is there for a portable device that can ‘only’ play back audio and perhaps video?
Setting The Scene
Original Sony Walkman TPS-L2 from 1979.
The concept of portable media players isn’t a new one by any stretch of the imagination. From portable record players in the 1950s alongside the rise of compact, transistor-based radios in the 1960s and of course ever more convenient media formats like the
8-track tape
, Philips
Compact Cassette
and the Compact Disc (CD) that made media more portable.
When Sony launched its first
Walkman
in July of 1979, it would kickstart a whole new market of portable media devices. With over an hour of music on a single cassette, anyone could listen to their favorite music (and mix- tapes) while traveling, working out at the gym, or jogging through the park or along the beach in a typical 1980s fashion. Even if one’s personal use of a Walkman – or one of its many clones – was less glamorous, it is hard to deny the cultural change that came with the availability of these devices.
Naturally, technological progress is inevitable. That’s why eventually cassette-based portable audio players gave way to CD-based ones. After details like anti-shock buffering were figured out to (mostly) prevent audio skipping, everyone needed to have personal CD-quality audio in their lives. Yet for all their benefits, optical media like CDs are less durable and more prone to technical issues than tape-based media, not to mention that CD-based Walkman players and clones are far less pocketable than their tape-based siblings. This meant that the tape-based Walkman and kin remained around until the early 2000s.
Things got interesting during the 1990s, as in 1992, Sony had already released its
MiniDisc
format. Despite this still being optical media (magneto-optical to be precise), MD media is far more compact than a CD, stores at least as much audio as a CD and comes in a protective cartridge. Although MD became affordable enough for the average consumers by the end of the 1990s, it saw its commercial success hampered by a number of things, not the least was Sony’s proprietary ATRAC audio format that was required for MD audio.
The other major obstacle for MD was a newfangled audio format that was doing the rounds on the Internet’s Digital Information Super-Highway,
called MP3
, which got pounced upon by then multimedia giant Diamond with the release of the
Diamond Rio PMP300
Flash-based MP3 player in 1998 (also
reviewed by LGR
and
Ars Technica in 2016
). While not exactly a multimedia star by 2022 standards with its clunky, parallel port-based PC connection, for something that was meant to be used alongside Windows 98, it has essentially the same features as the first Apple iPod that would be released three years later, including internal storage, media controls, an accompanying software utility and (eventually) an online music store.
Enter The Pod
The Creative Nomad Jukebox, with its roomy 2.5″ HDD.
The main goal of Apple when it created the
iPod
was to apply its sense of style and user-interaction to it, as covered in an
article by Wired
from 2006 featuring interviews with people who were involved with the development of iPod and the accompanying iTunes software. The latter was originally called SoundJam when Apple bought it along with hiring its main programmer: Jeff Robbin. Originally iTunes was meant to provide a solid music player for MacOS to match the digital music revolution that erupted during the late 90s, but would end being the management software for the iPod as well.
The iPod was developed as a result of a search for new gadgets that might fit in the rapidly developing multimedia ecosystem of that time. As Greg Joswiak – Apple’s vice president of iPod product marketing – put it, while they found that products like digital cameras and camcorders were quite decent, the user interfaces and handling of PMPs of the time ‘stank’. They were either big and clunky or small and rather useless, with often small 32 MB or 64 MB built-in memory due to the limitations of Flash memory.
First-generation iPod ‘Classic’.
Who exactly pitched the idea of creating a music player is not known, but when the idea came across CEO Steve Jobs, he immediately jumped on it, leading to the development of the
first prototypes
. The next question thus became what this ‘iPod’ – as it later became known – would have in terms of features that would make it better than the competition. Storage was a main one, and like some of the competing PMPs, the iPod would feature a hard disk drive (HDD), but not the rather large 2.5″ HDDs others were using.
The first-generation iPod used a then newly developed 1.8″ HDD by Toshiba. This gave it a roomy 5 GB – 10 GB of storage, and instead of the sluggish USB 1.1 connections of competing PMPs, it was equipped with FireWire. At 400 Mb/s (half-duplex), it was a much better match for the internal storage relative to the 12 Mb/s of USB 1.1. This advantage would remain until USB 2.0 and beyond became commonplace.
The iPod’s name was pitched by Vinnie Chieco – part of a team tasked with marketing the new device – as an allusion to
2001: A Space Odyssey
and the illustrious “Open the pod bay door, Hal!” scene, with pods being the small vessels for missions outside of the spaceship.
Perhaps the only thing that the first generation iPod could be dinged on was the lack of Windows compatibility. You needed a FireWire-capable Mac system with iTunes on it to manage the contents of the device.
They Grow Up So Fast
The success of the iPod – or
iPod Classic
as it’d be renamed by its 6th iteration – would lead to another five revisions of the original model. Most notable change with the first revision (iPod Classic 2nd generation) included Windows compatibility, with the iPod’s HDD formatted with the HFS+ filesystem for use with Macs and FAT32 for Windows. Instead of iTunes, Windows users used
Musicmatch Jukebox
to manage the iPod.
With the 3rd generation iPod from 2003, USB support was added, with a capacitive control ring rather than the old mechanical scroll wheel and buttons. This release also dropped Musicmatch support and unleashed the joys of iTunes onto a Windows audience. With the 5th generation FireWire support was just for charging, while USB took over content synchronization duty, while a color display and video playback was a standard feature.
The timeline of iPod models. (Source: Wikipedia)
Alongside the ‘Classic’ range was a veritable flurry of new
iPod models
, including the Mini (based around the 1″
Microdrive
), Nano (Mini-replacement, uses Flash storage), the display-less Shuffle, and finally in 2007 the first-generation iPod Touch. Whereas the former all were dedicated PMPs, the Touch could probably best be regarded as a phone-less iPhone. Featuring most of the same hardware as the iPhone, the iPod Touch runs iOS and can use the Apple App Store via WiFi.
End Of An Era?
If we regard the rise of the Walkman and similar devices as a response to the desire to listen to music that was purchased (as physical media, or digitally), then the shift to streaming music from subscription services over the past years would seem to be the driving force behind the purported demise of PMPs and the driving force behind Apple discontinuing the iPod. Whereas for years it made sense to have an ‘MP3 player’ to copy tracks to which were either purchased digitally, or ripped from purchased/borrowed CDs, there’s an ongoing shift towards paying for a subscription rather than purchasing music outright.
This change can be seen not just with Apple’s range of iPod players, but also with its refocusing from the
iTunes Store
to its streaming music business. The idea is not dissimilar to services such as Netflix and other streaming video services, with on-demand streaming of any content that is available on this service, rather than buying or borrowing albums, films and series.
Within this brave new world where nobody owns the music which they listen to, it could be argued that the role of PMPs is over, as any supported internet-enabled device can gain instant access to a massive library of content. All without the need to build up your own, personal media library. Simply get the app on your smartphone, smart TV, smart watch, or smart refrigerator and sign up for a subscription. Convenience at your very finger tips.
Yet this notion is not entirely supported by the statistics, with data from the US showing a
rise in audio CD sales
the past years. At this point music streaming services generate over half of the music industry’s revenue, with CD and vinyl sales making up around 11%. What this tells us is that the announced death of personal media libraries may be very much premature.
Not Just Nostalgia
As much as the music market has changed since the era of wax music cylinders, one constant has always been that there are different types of people, each with their own preferences in the way they enjoy music. Based on this notion alone it would seem outrageous to suggest that everyone will just be streaming their media content from online services to their iPhones, Android phones and gaggle of ‘smart’ devices.
The advantages of physical media should be obvious: you’re not limited to the streaming service’s media library, you get at least CD quality audio, and there’s no monthly fee to keep the media. It will also never vanish from your library at the whim of a publisher and you can lug it freely along to that cabin in the mountains with absolutely zero cell reception. Copy it onto a PMP and you get all that, but in a more compact format. Ideal for those long hiking trips and to prevent blood-curdling roaming data costs during vacations.
PCB of a generic MP3 player. (Credit: Raimond Spekking)
Using a dedicated PMP instead of one’s smartphone has the added advantage of saving battery charge, while adding physical control buttons that allow for tactile interaction. With today’s technology, a modern-day PMP doesn’t require more than a single processor chip in addition to a big NAND Flash chip (and/or SD card expansion) storage, all of which takes up little space and can last a long time on a single battery charge. Add to this not having to take out an expensive, fragile smartphone to fiddle with media controls on its touch screen and risk dropping it or having it stolen
Even so, splurging on the still existent modern-day PMPs (or ‘MP3 players’ as they are still colloquially referred to) isn’t a necessity, when open source projects like
RockBox
make it their mission to provide a wide range of older and newer PMPs –
including the iPod
– with updated firmware that even adds features absent from the original firmware.
We have also covered modifying and repairing iPods (and other PMPs) before, including
upgrading the storage
on an iPod Video as well as on an
iPod Nano 3rd gen
, and replacing the
battery and storage
on a 6th generation iPod. Unlike an average smartphone, these PMPs are fairly easy to repair and upgrade, adding another item to the list of potential benefits.
Good Vibes
Cheap portable tape players were a staple of the the 90s, and like so many I ended up with one of those. Even though they had the cheap tape mechanism which you wouldn’t want to waste anything better than a Type I tape on, as well as the cheap headphones with the foam that was guaranteed to disintegrate, it was still an awesome device. With it I could listen to music outside of the house, which was a rarity back then.
When the MP3-revolution came around, it changed all of that. It felt as if within a number of years things went from portable CD players – that’d skip if you so much as bumped the table it was carefully placed on – to Flash- and HDD-based players that would come each successive year in fancier styling and with ever more features packed in a smaller enclosures.
Even if I was never really a fan of the iPod-style ‘slab of aluminium/plastic’ aesthetic, I must admit to it being attractive devices in terms of their handling and ecosystem, especially with the iPod Nano and Shuffle. Having used one of the newer iPod Touch devices (as an iOS development device), I can however see why it didn’t make sense for Apple to keep selling it.
Even though Apple has said its farewells to the PMP market, this does not mean that this market is no longer. As we have seen, there are still solid reasons to keep using one of these dedicated playback devices, and even ignoring the diverse offerings of brand-new ‘MP3 players’ today, repairing and upgrading older players will ensure that those who want to keep using these devices can do so.
And who knows, maybe Apple will be back one day as the fickle music markets shift currents once again. | 71 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473850",
"author": "Jerry",
"timestamp": "2022-05-16T14:19:57",
"content": "It was not THAT long ago, while at C.E.S. in Las Vegas, I won an iPod in a drawing.After I got home, I realized it was already “Out Of Date”.I did load a few songs on it, and threw it in the drawer.Never di... | 1,760,372,693.012914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/16/learn-by-doing-turn-your-garage-into-your-perfect-workspace/ | Learn By Doing: Turn Your Garage Into Your Perfect Workspace | Dave Rowntree | [
"home hacks",
"how-to"
] | [
"building",
"diy",
"garage",
"workspace"
] | Plenty of potential, but a cozy hacking space it is not
To us hackers and makers, the tools of our trade are often as important and interesting as the details of the hacks themselves, but what about the most important tool of all — the very space you use to make your magic happen? That may be your bedroom, a nearby hackerspace, and if you have the resources, you may even own a place of your own, and get to
build your perfect workspace
.
The latter situation is what [MichD] and partner [Brittany] found themselves in, having moved into their first place. Many couples focus on getting a hot tub in the garden or sorting the nursery, but these two are proper electronics nerds, so they converted a free-standing double wide garage into the
nerdhub
, learning as they went along, and documenting it in excruciating detail for your viewing pleasure.
Door fitted, framed up, and insulation in place. All ready for plasterboarding.
The building structurally is a single-skinned brick-built box, with a raw concrete floor. Pretty typical stuff for the UK (we’ve seen much worse), but not ideal for spending an extended amount of time in due to our damp, cold climate, at least in winter.
The first order of business was partitioning the front section for bike storage, and screeding the floor. Once the floor was solid, the walls and ceiling joists could be framed up, ready for fitting insulation material and covering with plasterboard.
Electrics were next in order, with the wires clipped to the brickwork, well away from where the plasterboard would be, therefore making it less likely to accidentally drill into a live cable when adding external fixtures.
Since the front part of the room was to be partitioned off, another access door was needed. This involved cutting out the bricks to fit a concrete lintel. With that installed, and the bricks above supported, the area below was cut out to the required shape. A somewhat nerve-wracking experience, if you ask us!
As any self-respecting hacker will tell you — no room build is complete without a decent amount of RGB bling, so the whole room was decked out with APA102 addressable LED strips. Control of these was courtesy of
WLED
running on an ESP32 module, with
LedFX
used on a nearby PC to perform music visualisation, just because.
Already got your space worked out, but
need a little help with organisation
? Not got much space, and need a portable solution?
Check this out for (small) size
! | 32 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473788",
"author": "not",
"timestamp": "2022-05-16T11:39:49",
"content": "First time is see that plastering whole drywall panels is a thing. In my eyes totally unnecessary, it´s enough to plaster the joints between the panels, and screws heads.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth":... | 1,760,372,692.789452 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/16/lawn-mower-carburetor-improves-mileage-on-old-sedan/ | Lawn Mower Carburetor Improves Mileage On Old Sedan | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"carburetor",
"efficiency",
"engine",
"ford",
"fuel",
"lawn mower",
"Maverick",
"mileage"
] | Before the Ford marketing department started slapping Maverick badges on pickup trucks, the name had been attached to compact cars from the 70s instead. These were cheap even by Ford standards, and were built as a desperate attempt to keep up with Japanese imports that were typically higher quality and more efficient than most American cars at the time. Some people called them the poor man’s Mustang. While Ford and the other American car companies struggled to stay relevant during the gas crisis, it turns out that
they could have simply slapped a lawn mower carburetor on their old Mavericks to dramatically improve fuel efficiency
.
The old Maverick used a 5 L carbureted V8 engine, which is not exactly the pinnacle of efficiency even by 1970s standards. But [ThunderHead289] figured out that with some clever modifications to the carburetor, he could squeeze out some more efficiency. By using a much smaller carburetor, specifically one from a lawn mower, and 3D printing an adapter for it, he was able to increase the fuel efficiency to over 40 mpg (which is higher than even the modern Mavericks) while still achieving a top speed of 75 mph.
While it’s not the fastest car on the block with this modification, it’s still drives well enough to get around. One thing to watch out for if you try this on your own classic car is that some engines use fuel as a sort of coolant for certain engine parts, which can result in certain problems like burned valves. And, if you don’t have a lawnmower around from which to borrow a carb,
take a look at this build which 3D prints one from scratch instead
.
Thanks to [Jack] for the tip! | 71 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473735",
"author": "bob",
"timestamp": "2022-05-16T08:23:02",
"content": "I think this was posted already a few weeks ago. the comments were largely critical of the hack.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6474825",
"aut... | 1,760,372,692.900097 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/15/3d-printing-hack-leverages-vase-mode-structurally/ | 3D Printing Hack Leverages Vase Mode Structurally | Dave Rowntree | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"structural",
"supporting ribs",
"vase mode"
] | Conceptually, FDM 3D printing is quite a simple process: you define a set of volumes in 3D space, then the slicing software takes a cut through the model at ever-increasing heights, works out where the inner and outer walls are, and then fills in the inside volume sparsely in order to tie the walls together and support the top layers that are added at the end.
But as you will find quite quickly, when models get larger and more complex, printing times can quickly explode. One trick for large models with simple shapes but very low structural needs is to use so-called ‘vase mode’, which traces the outline of the object in a thin, vertical spiral. But this is a weak construction scheme and allows only limited modelling complexity. With that in mind, here’s [Ben Eadie] with a
kind-of halfway house technique
(video, embedded below) that some might find useful for saving on printing time and material.
This solid shape is mostly cut-through to make supporting ribs between the walls of the shell
The idea is to use vase mode printing, but by manipulating the shell of the model, adding partially cut-through slots around the perimeter, and critically, adding one slot that goes all the way.
First you need a model that has an inner shell that follows the approximate shape of the outer, which you could produce by hollowing out a solid, leaving a little thickness. By making the slot width equal to half the thickness of the nozzle size and stopping the slots the same distance from the outer shell, vase mode can be used to trace the outline of shape, complete with supporting ribs in between the inner and outer walls of the shell.
Because the slot is narrower than the extrudate, the slot walls will merge together into one solid rib, tying the objects’ walls to each other, but critically, still allowing it to be printed in a continuous spiral without any traditional infill. It’s an interesting idea, that could have some merit.
There are other ways to stiffen up thing printed parts,
such as using surface textures
, But if you’re fine with the thin shell, but want to have a little fun with it, you can
hack the g-code to make some really interesting shapes
. | 25 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473697",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2022-05-16T05:56:43",
"content": "You left out a key detail to understanding how it can print this in vase mode: one of the ribs is “open” on both sides, meaning that the outside and inside are connected together there (and only there). ... | 1,760,372,693.37085 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/15/light-whiskers-from-soap-bubbles-is-real-science/ | Light Whiskers From Soap Bubbles Is Real Science | Al Williams | [
"Laser Hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"branched flow",
"bubble",
"laser",
"light whiskers"
] | You might think that anything to do with a soap bubble is for kids. But it turns out that observing light scattering through a soap bubble produces unexpected results that may lead to insights into concepts as complex as space-time curvature. That’s what [stoppi] says in his latest experiment —
generating “light whiskers” using a laser and a soap bubble
. You can watch the video, below, but fair warning: if videos with only music annoy you, you might want to mute your speakers before you watch. On the other hand, it almost seems like a laser light show set to music.
The setup is simple and follows a 2020 Israeli-American
research paper’s
methodology. A relatively strong laser pointer couples to a fiber-optic cable through a focusing lens. The other end of the fiber delivers the light to the soap bubble, where it separates into strands that exhibit something called branched flow.
Our physics knowledge isn’t deep enough to explain what’s going on here. However, if you have an interest in reproducing this experiment, it doesn’t look like it takes anything exotic. The original paper has a lot to say on the topic and if that’s too heavy for you, there’s always the
Sunday supplement version
.
If there is ever a practical application for this, we’ll see an uptick in the design of
bubble machines
. Oddly, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen
lasers married with bubbles
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473632",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2022-05-16T02:19:18",
"content": "Interesting… I suspected something was going on with soap bubbles due to seeing the swirling irridescence in them, kinda points to prismic structures in the soap film moving around, microturbulence o... | 1,760,372,693.52194 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/15/hackaday-links-may-15-2022/ | Hackaday Links: May 15, 2022 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"ar",
"astronomy",
"barrel",
"black hole",
"canada",
"copperage",
"hackaday links",
"haptic",
"lips",
"M87*",
"milky way",
"mouth",
"phased array",
"Sgr A*",
"space law",
"ultrasound",
"vr"
] | It may be blurry and blotchy, but it’s ours.
The first images of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy
were revealed this week, and they caused quite a stir. You may recall the first images of the supermassive black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy from a couple of years ago: spectacular images that captured exactly what all the theories said a black hole should look like, or more precisely, what the accretion disk and event horizon should look like, since black holes themselves aren’t much to look at. That black hole, dubbed M87*, is over 55 million light-years away, but is so huge and so active that it was relatively easy to image. The black hole at the center of our own galaxy, Sagittarius A*, is comparatively tiny — its event horizon would fit inside the orbit of Mercury — a much closer at only 26,000 light-years or so. But, our black hole is much less active and obscured by dust, so imaging it was far more difficult. It’s a stunning technical achievement, and the images are certainly worth checking out.
Another one from the “Why didn’t I think of that?” files —
contactless haptic feedback using the mouth
is now a thing. This comes from the Future Interfaces Group at Carnegie-Mellon and is intended to provide an alternative to what ends up being about the only practical haptic device for VR and AR applications — vibrations from off-balance motors. Instead, this uses an array of ultrasonic transducers positioned on a VR visor and directed at the user’s mouth. By properly driving the array, pressure waves can be directed at the lips, teeth, and tongue of the wearer, providing feedback for in-world events. The mock game demonstrated in the video below is a little creepy — not sure how many people enjoyed the feeling of cobwebs brushing against the face or the splatter of spider guts in the mouth. Still, it’s a pretty cool idea, and we’d like to see how far it can go.
Rest easy, Canadian space-farers:
it is now illegal to commit murder in space
. Or more precisely, the Canadian government has made anything that’s illegal to do in Canada proper also illegal for Canadians to do in space. Given that only nine Canadians have made the trip upstairs since the 1980s, and because they’re just so darn nice, there probably wasn’t a huge risk of anything untoward happening in orbit, but that didn’t stop Parliament from closing a potential loophole. The whole field of space law is actually kind of fascinating, and it’ll be interesting to watch how it develops as we move further out into the solar system. But for now, everyone can feel a little safer heading into orbit with any Canadians.
And finally, wooden barrels may seem about as low-tech and anachronistic as buggy whips, but that’s far from the case. Demand for wooden barrels, needed for the proper aging of wine and spirits, is still high, and
watching the process of making barrels
is downright fascinating. The amount of work that goes into coopered wooden barrels is amazing, and even with modern machine tools, it’s still a very manual process. The idea that a watertight vessel can be made from wooden staves using absolutely no adhesives and no joints more complex than butting the staves up against each other is just mindblowing, and thinking about how it was done without machine tools like jointers and before the invention of hydraulic power is daunting. Enjoy! | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473581",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2022-05-15T23:44:55",
"content": "Of course you have to have wooden barrels for aging, that’s where the taste comes from! No barrels and we’d all be drink vodka.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"c... | 1,760,372,693.480571 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/15/computer-thing-might-be-garbage/ | Computer Thing Might Be Garbage | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"TV Typewriter"
] | [Tech Time Traveller] has a lot of voices in his head this week, and most of them are worried about his wife’s reaction to him
buying other people’s garbage
. We don’t blame him, though. He bought it from an estate sale and it was billed as a TV typewriter. The device looked completely homebrewed from somewhere around the late 1970s to the early 1980s. It contains a mess of components obviously hand-built in a combination of neat construction and messy wiring.
[Tech] videos most of his tests and exploration to get the thing working and tested. Given its age and construction, it worked surprisingly well, although it did take a little work to get it back to complete function. In fact, he bought the device three years ago and is finally getting around to finishing the project and putting together the video.
The terminal had a very odd Molex connector with a missing pin that matched the SWTP 6800’s serial port. A little investigation revealed that the same estate sale had sold a 6800-based computer, too. The keyboard itself was actually something you could buy at Radio Shack for a while. We wonder how many of them got used and how many just sat on shelves until they were junked.
You have to wonder what the story is behind this device and the matching computer. It took a great deal of skill to build something like this back in the day. Today, you could easily do something like this using off-the-shelf stuff. You have to wonder if anything you are building today will be on the next generation’s version of YouTube in the year 2070. Probably not.
TV typewriters
were definitely a thing
, launched by a famous book by [Don Lancaster]. When you look at all the circuitry required, it is amazing to think you can now
fit a whole computer inside something like this
. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473521",
"author": "Tom Brusehaver",
"timestamp": "2022-05-15T20:04:36",
"content": "This isn’t the Don Lancaster tvt-2.2 friends and I built one in high school. It was working last I saw it. It was on a SWTP 6800 though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,372,694.010497 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/15/vicious-little-desktop-shredder-pulverizes-plastic-waste/ | Vicious Little Desktop Shredder Pulverizes Plastic Waste | Dan Maloney | [
"green hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"nema-34",
"plastic",
"recycle",
"shredder",
"shredding"
] | We’ve all likely seen video of the enormous industrial shredders that eat engine blocks for lunch and spit out a stream of fine metal chips. The raw power of these metal-munching monsters is truly fearsome, and they appear to be the inspiration for
SHREDII, the miniature plastic shredder
for at-home recycling of plastic waste.
The fact that SHREDII isn’t all that large doesn’t make it any less dangerous, at least to things smaller and softer than engine blocks, like say fingers. The core of the shredder is a hexagonal axle carrying multiple laser-cut, sheet steel blades. The rotating blades are spaced out along the axle so they nest between a bed of stationary blades; rotating the common axle produces the shearing and cutting action needed to shred plastic.
On version one of the shredder, each blade had two hooked teeth, and the whole cutting head was made from relatively thick steel. When driven by a NEMA 34 stepper — an admittedly odd choice but it’s what they could get quickly — through a 50:1 planetary gearbox, the shredder certainly did the business. The shreds were a little too chunky, though, so version two used thinner steel for the blades and gave the rotary blades more teeth. The difference was substantial — much finer shreds that were suitable for
INJEKTO, their homebrew direct-feed injection molding machine
.
There’s a lot to be said for closing the loop on plastics used in desktop manufacturing processes, and the team of SHREDII and INJEKTO stands to help the home gamer effectively reuse plastic waste. And while that’s all to the good, let’s face it — the oddly satisfying experience of watching a shredder like this chew through plastic like it isn’t even there is plenty of reason to build something like this.
Thanks for the tip, [Alen]! | 21 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473499",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2022-05-15T17:43:16",
"content": "Neat…. Is it wide enough for secure media destruction also, like burned CDs and DVDs? Or does it need a few more layers of teeth?I am interested also in the PET bottle munching abilities to turn wast... | 1,760,372,694.066279 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/15/e-paper-clock-displays-things-in-a-battery-friendly-manner/ | E-Paper Clock Displays Things In A Battery-Friendly Manner | Lewin Day | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"e-paper",
"e-paper display",
"epaper",
"gps"
] | Clock builds are a hacker staple, and many overflow with power-thirsty LEDs and network features. This build from [mattwach] takes quite the opposite approach,
sipping away at its batteries thanks to an e-paper based design.
The build relies on a small Waveshare e-paper module which only requires power when the display is actually changing. When static, the display needs no electricity, and this helps save a great amount of power compared to OLED or LCD-based clocks.
An Atmega328p is the heart of the build, running off a 32.768 KHz clock crystal for a combination of precise timekeeping and low power draw. Time is ensured to be both precise
and
accurate thanks to a GPS module which allows the clock to sync to satellite time when powered up.
It’s a common way to sync clocks to a high-quality time source
. Most of the time, though, the GPS is kept powered down to save the 30-100 mA that the module typically draws when in use.
Other features include a temperature, humidity, and pressure sensor, with ambient pressure graphed over time. There’s also notification of sunrise and sunset times, along with the current phase of the moon. It’s all wrapped up in a case tastefully manufactured using 3D printed parts and some wooden CNC-cut panels for a nice rustic look.
With the e-paper display and the microcontroller configured for low-power operation, the clock will run for around 6 months on four AAA cells. Overall, it’s a nifty little clock that will provide the time, date, and other information without the need for an Internet connection. Video after the break. | 20 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473460",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2022-05-15T14:15:19",
"content": "May as well give it solar cells since it probably needs to be near a window to receive GPS signals, unless it has remote antenna.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,694.186094 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/15/upcycling-a-flat-bed-scanner/ | Upcycling A Flat Bed Scanner | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"flatbed scanner",
"light table",
"upcycle"
] | [Piffpaffpoltrie] had a 20-year-old Acer flatbed scanner that they just couldn’t justify keeping. But it does seem a shame to throw away a working piece of gear. Instead, the old scanner
became a light table
. We’ll admit, as projects go, it isn’t the most technically sophisticated thing we’ve ever seen, but we do think it is a worthy way to upcycle something that would otherwise be filling up a landfill.
The scanner was old enough to have a CCFL light source inside. However, it was too small, so it came out along with many other components that may yet find use in another project. If you didn’t know , scanners are good sources for small stepper motors, straight rods, and first-surface mirrors.
The only parts that survived the refit were the power supply (including the wall wart), the outer case, of course, and — oddly — a large controller board. You might wonder why a light table needs a controller board, and the answer is it doesn’t. However, there’s not much need for a 20-year-old scanner controller board, and reusing the board allowed the power switch and power socket to be exactly where they were supposed to be. The board is effectively just a mechanical mounting bracket at this point.
The new lighting is LED, and some white cardboard and foil finished up the build. Truthfully, all the scanner donated was a piece of glass, the enclosure, and the power supply. Still, it makes an attractive light table and we are always up for upcycling.
If you need something to do with the insides, how about
building a camera
? Or deck out your
PCB lab
. | 34 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473443",
"author": "then",
"timestamp": "2022-05-15T13:17:02",
"content": "Downcycling?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6473451",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2022-05-15T14:03:19",
"content": "A simi... | 1,760,372,693.967826 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/15/the-explosive-art-of-detonographs/ | The Explosive Art Of Detonographs | Lewin Day | [
"Art"
] | [
"art",
"explosion",
"explosives"
] | The visual arts are a broad field, encompassing everything from the chiselling of marble sculptures to the creation of delicate landscapes in charcoal on paper. However, [Evelyn Rosenberg] has experimented with some altogether more radical techniques over the years,
creating her explosively-formed detonographs.
The process of creating a detonograph starts with sketching out a design, and using it to create a plaster mold. The mold exists as a bas relief, upon which metal sheets are laid on top. Various different metals may be layered up to create varying effects, and other objects like leaves, branches, or lace may also be included in the stack up.
Rosenberg’s piece titled “Enchanted New Mexico.”
Then, the metal plate sitting atop the mold is covered with explosive powder. When this is detonated, it smashes everything together with great force. The metal sheet takes on the negative form of the bas relief mold, while also picking up imprints from any leaves or other objects included in the various layers. Dissimilar metals included in the stack-up may also weld together during this process.
With some post-processing like polishing and chemical treatments, the result is a beautiful metal artwork full of dimension and detail. It’s somewhat like an artistic take on
the industrial process of explosive welding
. Video after the break. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473428",
"author": "Holger Wuppermann",
"timestamp": "2022-05-15T12:07:17",
"content": "Don´t try this at home*gg*",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6473480",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2022-05-15T16:05:06",
"con... | 1,760,372,693.896917 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/14/running-arm-chips-on-algae-power/ | Running ARM Chips On Algae Power | Al Williams | [
"green hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"algae",
"photosynthesis"
] | What’s the size of an AA battery and can run an ARM Cortex M0+ for six months? Well… probably an AA battery, but obviously, that wouldn’t be worth mentioning. But researchers at Cambridge have
built a cell of blue-green algae
that can do the job.
As you might expect, the algae need light, since they generate energy through photosynthesis. However, unlike conventional solar cells, the algae continue to produce energy in the dark at least for a while. Presumably, the algae store energy during the day and release it at night to survive naturally-occurring periods of darkness.
Generating power from photosynthesis isn’t a new idea since photosynthesis releases electrons. A typical cell has gold electrodes and a proton exchange membrane of some kind. You can see a video from Cambridge below about generating electricity from photosynthesis. Keep in mind, of course, that the Cortex M0+ is capable of very low power operation. Don’t look for that algae-powered spot welder anytime soon.
People tend to get fixated on electricity as energy, but there are other ways to harness photosynthesis. For example, we’ve seen algae fueling
a chicken hole
in the past. Not to mention we’ve seen algae used to
power a robot
in a novel and non-electrical way. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473373",
"author": "Fungus",
"timestamp": "2022-05-15T08:12:47",
"content": "At the power consumption of this chip an AA battery would certainly power it for a year.I’ve built Arduino projects (with a Pro Mini) that run for over five years on a single coin cell.",
"parent_id": ... | 1,760,372,694.123998 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/14/balloon-guitar-is-an-absolute-gas-helium-or-not/ | Balloon Guitar Is An Absolute Gas, Helium Or Not | Lewin Day | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"guitar",
"helium"
] | Guitars are most typically built out of wood. Whether it’s an acoustic guitar with a big open cavity, or a solid-body electric, there’s generally a whole lot of wood used in the construction. However, [Mattias Krantz] shows us that alternative construction methods are entirely possible, by
building his own balloon guitar
.
The balloon guitar still has a neck, bridge, and strings just like any other. However, in place of the resonant cavity of an acoustic guitar, there is provision to install a large balloon instead. It’s actually quite interesting to watch — with the balloon installed, the guitar delivers much more volume than when played without a resonant cavity at all.
The guitar was actually built to test if swapping out air in the balloon for helium would shift the pitch of the sound. Of course, a guitar’s pitch comes from the tension on the vibrating strings, so changing the gas in the resonant cavity doesn’t directly affect it. Instead, much like
inhaling helium to affect the human voice
, the change is to the timbre of the sound, not the fundamental pitch itself. It sounds as if the guitar has been given a subtle treble boost.
It’s a fun build, and one that shows us that it’s possible to build musical instruments in many ways, not just using traditional techniques. If you want to further play with your guitar’s sound, though,
consider turning to the world of machine learning. | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473330",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2022-05-15T02:45:12",
"content": "Ppl: “You can’t make music out of a bag of breath”Scotsman: “You wannae bet laddie?”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6473387",
"author... | 1,760,372,694.395282 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/14/minidisc-player-supports-full-data-transfer/ | MiniDisc Player Supports Full Data Transfer | Bryan Cockfield | [
"classic hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"buffer",
"digital",
"download",
"dram",
"minidisc",
"music",
"netmd",
"rh-1",
"sony",
"transfer",
"usb"
] | Between the era of the CD and the eventual rise and domination of streaming music platforms, there was a limbo period of random MP3 players mixed in with the ubiquitous (and now officially discontinued) iPod. In certain areas, though, the digital music player of choice was the MiniDisc, a miniature re-writable CD player with some extra digital features. Among them was the ability to transfer music to the discs over USB, but they did not feature the ability to transfer the songs back to a computer. At least until now,
thanks to this impressive hack from [asivery]
.
Although it sounds straightforward, this trick has a lot of moving parts that needed to come together just right. The MiniDisc player uses a proprietary encoding format called ATRAC, so a codec is needed for that. The MiniDisc player stores data from the disc in a 40-second buffer when playing, so the code reads the data directly from DRAM in 40-second chunks, moves the read head, repeats the process as needed, then stitches the 40-second parts back together. It can work on any Sony NetMD portable, if you are lucky enough to still have one around.
The project is a tremendous asset to the MiniDisc community, especially since the only way to recover data from a MiniDisc player prior to this was to use a specific version known as the RH-1. As [asivery] reports, used RH-1 players are going for incredibly high prices partially because of this feature. Since this new method demonstrates that it’s possible to do with other devices, perhaps its reign in the MiniDisc world will come to a close. For those still outside the loop on this esoteric piece of technology,
take a look at this MiniDisc teardown
.
Thanks to [Maarten] for the tip! | 28 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473301",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2022-05-15T01:02:22",
"content": "Sony lawsuit in 5..4..3..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6473302",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2022-05-15T01:13:... | 1,760,372,694.352463 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/14/attack-of-the-magnetic-slime-robots/ | Attack Of The Magnetic Slime Robots | Anne Ogborn | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"magnetic robot",
"neodymium",
"non-Newtonian",
"slime"
] | [Li Zhang] and his colleagues at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) have developed a blob of goo that can navigate complex surroundings, grow an ‘arm’, grasp a wire and move it, encapsulate a small object and carry it.
As explained in the research paper
, the secret is in the non-Newtonian material the bots are made of.
You can make a similar concoction at home, usually called “slime”, with corn starch and water. Deformed slowly, it will move like a fluid. Deformed rapidly, it behaves like an elastic solid. CUHK’s version is polyvinyl alcohol, glass coated NdFeB microparticles (neodymium magnets), and borax.
This dual behavior lets the robot do amazing things. Placed on a surface, they made the blob extend pseudopods by dragging underneath with a magnet, then used a circular field to make it grasp and transport a wire. They used a similar technique in the other axis to swallow an object. The CUHK group are promoting this as a way to retrieve foreign objects in the body (like an accidentally swallowed button cell).
Researchers will need to develop a non-toxic coating before it can be used in the body.
Nd magnets are made by sintering Nd2O3 or NdFeB in a strong magnetic field. Nd2O3 is available from SigmaAldrich at only slightly eye watering prices. Polyvinyl alcohol and borax are easily available. This seems like a hobbyist do-able project (Nd is toxic, use precautions).
We’ve been covering micro robots for some time. Back in 2014 we covered
swarm micro robots
.
This project uses an external field to move a small Nd magnet
, and all the way back in 2014
we covered early work in this field
. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473232",
"author": "MoTLD",
"timestamp": "2022-05-14T20:40:22",
"content": "‘usually called “slime”’Isn’t corn starch and water more usually called “oobleck”? The non-newtonian fluid I’ve heard commonly called “slime” is something else entirely.Anyway, non-newtonian ferrofluid is p... | 1,760,372,694.23186 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/14/taptype-ai-assisted-hand-motion-tracking-using-only-accelerometers/ | TapType: AI-Assisted Hand Motion Tracking Using Only Accelerometers | Dave Rowntree | [
"Machine Learning",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"accelerometer",
"ai",
"bayesian classifier",
"bluetooth low energy",
"machine learning",
"predictive text",
"text input"
] | The team from the Sensing, Interaction & Perception Lab at ETH Zürich, Switzerland have come up with
TapType, an interesting text input method
that relies purely on a pair of wrist-worn devices, that sense acceleration values when the wearer types on any old surface. By feeding the acceleration values from a pair of sensors on each wrist into a Bayesian inference classification type neural network which in turn feeds a traditional probabilistic language model (predictive text, to you and I) the resulting text can be input at up to 19 WPM with 0.6% average error. Expert TapTypers report speeds of up to 25 WPM, which could be quite usable.
Details are a little scarce (it is a research project, after all) but the actual hardware seems simple enough, based around the
Dialog DA14695
which is a nice Cortex M33 based Bluetooth Low Energy SoC. This is an interesting device in its own right, containing a “sensor node controller” block, that is capable of handling sensor devices connected to its interfaces, independant from the main CPU. The sensor device used is the
Bosch BMA456
3-axis accelerometer, which is notable for its low power consumption of a mere 150 μA.
User’s can “type” on any convenient surface.
The wristband units themselves appear to be a combination of a main PCB hosting the BLE chip and supporting circuit, connected to a flex PCB with a pair of the accelerometer devices at each end. The assembly was then slipped into a flexible wristband, likely constructed from 3D printed TPU, but we’re just guessing really, as the progression from the first embedded platform to the wearable prototype is unclear.
What is clear is that the wristband itself is just a dumb data-streaming device, and all the clever processing is performed on the connected device. Training of the system (and subsequent selection of the most accurate classifier architecture) was performed by recording volunteers “typing” on an A3 sized keyboard image, with finger movements tracked with a motion tracking camera, whilst recording the acceleration data streams from both wrists. There are a few more details in the
published paper
for those interested in digging into this research a little deeper.
The eagle-eyed may remember something similar from last year, from the same team, which
correlated bone-conduction sensing with VR type hand tracking
to generate input events inside a VR environment. | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473193",
"author": "Bruce Perens K6BP",
"timestamp": "2022-05-14T17:48:25",
"content": "There is already a commercial product like this. See it on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09C2K7L73I have one. It works pretty well.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,372,694.291681 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/14/who-is-thinking-about-open-source-firmware/ | Who Is Thinking About Open Source Firmware? | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"firmware",
"open source",
"software"
] | Yesterday, we ran a post on
NVIDIA’s announcement of open-source drivers
for some of its most recent video cards. And Hackaday being
huge
proponents of open-source software and hardware, you’d think we’d be pouring the champagne. But it’s trickier than that.
Part of the reason that they are able to publish a completely new, open-source driver is that the secrets that they’d like to keep
have moved into the
firmware
. So is the system as a whole more or less open? Yeah, maybe both.
With a more open interface between the hardware and the operating system, the jobs of people porting the drivers to different architectures are going to be easier. Bugs that are in what is now the driver layer should get found and fixed faster. All of the usual open-source arguments apply. But at the same time, the system as a whole isn’t all that much more transparent. The irony about the new NVIDIA drivers is that we’ve been pushing them to be more open for decades, and they’ve responded by pushing their secrets off into firmware.
Secrets that move from software to firmware are still secrets, and even those among us who are the most staunch proponents of open source have closed hardware and firmware paths in our computers. Take the
Intel Management Engine
, a small computer inside your computer that’s running all the time — even while the computer is “off”. You’d like to audit the code for that? Sorry. And it’s not like it hasn’t had its fair share of
security relevant bugs
.
And the rabbit hole goes deeper, of course. No modern X86 chips actually run the X86 machine language instructions — instead they have
a microcode interpreter
that reads the machine language and interprets it to what the chip really speaks. This is tremendously handy because it means that chip vendors can work around silicon bugs by simple pushing out a firmware update. But this also means that your CPU is running a secret firmware layer at core. This layer is of course
not without bugs
, some of which can have security relevant implications.
This goes double for your smartphone, which is
chock-full of multiple processors
that work more or less together to get the job done. So while Android users live in a more open environment than their iOS brethren, when you start to look down at the firmware layer, everything is the same. The top layer of the OS
is
open, but it’s swimming on top of an ocean of binary blobs.
How relevant any of this is to you might depend on what you intend to do with the device. If you’re into open source because you like to hack on software, having open drivers is a fantastic resource. If you’re looking toward openness for the security guarantees it offers, well, you’re out of luck because you still have to trust the firmware blindly. And if you’re into open source because the bugs tend to be found quicker, it’s a mix — while the top level drivers are made more inspectable, other parts of the code are pushed deeper into obscurity. Maybe it’s time to start paying attention to open source firmware?
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on
the web version of the newsletter
.
Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning?
You should sign up
! | 23 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473130",
"author": "Steven4601",
"timestamp": "2022-05-14T15:57:09",
"content": "My guess is : No Chance.As they need to disclose the detailed operation of pipelines and cores.Closed source firmware may be a requirement for commercial rivalry & marketing flexibility. (think of dies... | 1,760,372,694.512085 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/14/electronics-and-c-education-with-an-attiny13/ | Electronics And C++ Education With An ATTiny13 | Arya Voronova | [
"ATtiny Hacks",
"Microcontrollers",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"attiny hacks",
"attiny13",
"ATtiny13A",
"avr attiny13",
"c++",
"c++20",
"education",
"educational"
] | When [Adam, HA8KDA] is not busy with his PhD studies, he mentors a group of students interested in engineering. To teach them a wide range of topics, he set out to
build a small and entertaining embedded project
as they watch and participate along the way. With this LED-adorned ATTiny13A project, [Adam] demonstrated schematic and PCB design, then taught C++ basics and intricacies – especially when it comes to building low-footprint software – and tied it all together into a real-world device students could take home after the project. His course went way beyond the “Hello world”s we typically expect, and some of us can only wish for a university experience like this.
He shares the PCB files and software with us, but also talks about the C++20 framework he’s developed for this ATTiny. The ATTiny13A is very cheap, and also very limited – you get 1K of ROM and 64 bytes of RAM. This framework lets you make good use of it, providing the basics like GPIO wiggling, but also things like low-power operation hooks, soft PWM with optional multi-phase operation support and EEPROM access. Students could write their own animations for this device, and
he includes them in the repo,
too!
In educational projects, it pays to keep code direct and clean, cruft-less and accessible to students. These are the things you can only achieve when you truly understand the tools you’re working with, which is the perfect position for teaching about them! [Adam] intends to show that C++ is more than suitable for low-resource devices, and tells us about the EEPROM class code he wrote – compiling into the same amount of instructions as an Assembly implementation and consuming the same amount of RAM, while providing compile-time checks and fail-safe syntax.
We’ve talked about using
C++ on microcontrollers
before, getting extra compile-time features without overhead, and this project illustrates the concept well. [Adam] asks us all, and especially our fellow C++ wizards, for our opinions on
the framework he designed.
Could you achieve even more with this simple hardware – make the code more robust, clean, have it do more within the limited resources?
What could you build with an ATTiny13, especially with such a framework? A flashy
hairclip wearable
, perhaps, or a
code-learning RF-remote-controlled outlet.
We’ve also seen
a tiny camera trigger for endurance races,
, a
handheld
Flappy Bird
-like
console, and
many more! | 28 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473074",
"author": "juergen2022",
"timestamp": "2022-05-14T12:01:47",
"content": "Interesting, and I have to check into the details. Going for the minimum.Burkhard Kainka did a Tiny13 project called Sparrow – programming the Tiny13 via sound.https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cheepit-Sparrow... | 1,760,372,694.963472 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/14/printable-fix-for-time-card-clock-has-owner-seeing-red-again/ | Printable Fix For Time Card Clock Has Owner Seeing Red Again | Kristina Panos | [
"clock hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"3D printed gears",
"gear",
"ribbon",
"time clock"
] | When [Morley Kert] laid eyes on a working time card-punching clock, he knew he had to have it for a still-secret upcoming project. The clock seemed to work fine, except that after a dozen or so test punches, the ink was rapidly fading away into illegibility.
After a brief teardown and inspection
, [Morley] determined that the ribbon simply wasn’t advancing as it should.
This clock uses a ribbon cassette akin to a modern typewriter, except that instead of a feed spool and a take-up spool, it has a short length of ribbon that goes around and around, getting re-inked once per revolution.
When a card is inserted, a number of things happen: a new hole is punched on the left side, and an arm pushes the card against the ribbon, which is in turn pushed against the mechanical digit dials of the clock to stamp the card.
Finally, the ribbon gets advanced. Or it’s supposed to, anyway. [Morley] could easily see the shadow of a piece that was no longer there, a round piece with teeth with a protrusion on both faces for engaging both the time clock itself and the ribbon cassette. A simple little gear.
After emailing the company, it turns out they want $95 + tax to replace the part. [Morley] just laughed and fired up Fusion 360, having only caliper measurements and three seconds of a teardown video showing the missing part to go on. But he pulled it off, and pretty quickly, too. Version one had its problems, but 2.0 was a perfect fit, and the clock is punching evenly again. Be sure to check it out after the break.
Okay, so maybe you don’t have a time card clock to fix. But surely you’ve had to throw out an otherwise perfectly good coat because
the zipper broke?
Thanks for the tip, [Zane]! | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473084",
"author": "Troisième typz",
"timestamp": "2022-05-14T12:57:08",
"content": "“I think 10° will be better”“I don’t know how many will fill up the circle completely”We are so used to have machines easying everything that something as simple as 360 / 10 = 36 stops being obviou... | 1,760,372,694.897233 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/13/whats-in-a-wattmeter/ | What’s In A Wattmeter? | Al Williams | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"wattmeter"
] | The idea behind watts seems deceptively simple. By definition, a watt is the amount of work done when one ampere of current flows between a potential of one volt. If you think about it, a watt is basically how much work is done by a 1V source across a 1Ω resistor. That’s easy to say, but how do you measure it in the real world? [DiodeGoneWild]
has the answer
in a recent video where he tears a few wattmeters open.
There are plenty of practical concerns. With AC, for example, the phase of the components matters. The first 11 minutes of the video are somewhat of a theory review, but then the cat intervenes and we get to see some actual hardware.
Inside the first wattmeter, he finds essentially the same circuit he was drawing at the start of the video, with some practical additions like range selection. The principle used is slightly different than the one he was drawing, but the core principle is the same: measure the voltage and the current to find the power.
We tend to be a little more cautious around main power, but unlike some other famous YouTubers, he manages not to shock himself or set any fires, at least on camera.
We marvel at the mechanical design of these meters and we also liked the homebrew power meter power strip. So if you like the theory, the teardowns, or a homebrew project, there’s something for you.
Measuring power at RF is
a whole other science
. Naturally, there are
many ways to measure wattage
, and not every instrument uses the same method. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473565",
"author": "Martin O'Grady",
"timestamp": "2022-05-15T22:44:35",
"content": "There’s these Sunbeam powerstrips with a millionfold copies firmware/design FauxPaux being sold like everywhere. The all have the same autoswitch defect. The 4 slaves stay off till current drawn th... | 1,760,372,694.762825 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/13/retrotechtacular-the-ibm-system-360-remembered/ | Retrotechtacular: The IBM System/360 Remembered | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"ibm",
"mainframe",
"System/360"
] | Before IBM was synonymous with personal computers, they were synonymous with large computers. If you didn’t live it, it was hard to realize just how ubiquitous IBM computers were in most industries. And the flagship of the mainframe world was the IBM System/360. For a whole generation that grew up in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a 360 was probably what you thought of when someone said computer. [Computer History Archive Project] has a loving recollection of the machine with
a lot of beautiful footage
from places like NASA and IBM itself. You can see the video below.
Not only was the 360 physically imposing, but it had lots of lights, switches, and dials that appealed to the nerdiest of us. The machines were usually loud, too, with a Selectric terminal, card punches and readers, noisy 9-track tape drives, and a line printer or two.
While even a supercomputer from the 1960s doesn’t seem very powerful today, the 360 holds up pretty well.
Most of them were 32-bit machines
although there was at least one 16-bit bargain model and one that did everything 8-bits at a time but still made you think it was churning out about 30,000 instructions per second. You could even join some of them together to get more power, although memory bus contention made that less effective than you might think. Some of the higher-end models used 64-bit memory, parallel execution, and virtual memory.
One hallmark of this family of computers is that it had sophisticated I/O channels that could interface a lot of devices to the CPU. Of course, you needed a lot of devices when a hard drive cost more than your house and would hold 5 or 10 megabytes or so. Memory ran from about 8K to 8M — quite the range. Usuallly, the computers were leased not bought, so price comparison is hard. But a very large System/360 Model 195 was quite fast, could multiprocess, and had a whopping 4 MB of memory. The cost? Somewhere between $7 and $25 million in 1971 dollars!
Computing was a different world back then. Raised floors and special air conditioners were the order of the day. We also probably should have been wearing hearing protection! Amazingly, as common as these were,
not many of them have survived
and many of those aren’t working. These days, DASD and IPL aren’t common terms in the computer business, but when the 360 ruled the data center, they were terms you heard all the time.
If you are lucky, maybe you’ll find one stuck in a barn one day.
It could happen
. Just try to
make sure the barn is close to your house
. | 51 | 33 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472963",
"author": "Jack William Bell",
"timestamp": "2022-05-14T02:21:07",
"content": "I worked on an IBM 390 (which had multiple 360s as ancillary processors) back in the 1980s. COBOL, BALR (assembly), C, and JCL (Job Control Language).In Dungeons and Dragons fantasy world terms ... | 1,760,372,694.852683 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/13/big-audio-visualizer-pumps-with-the-music/ | Big Audio Visualizer Pumps With The Music | Lewin Day | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"audio visualizer",
"led",
"leds",
"spectrum analyzer",
"ws2812b"
] | A spectrum analyzer is a great way to create exciting visuals that pulse in time with music. [pyrograf] wanted a big one as a display piece,
so set about whipping up something of their very own.
An ESP32 microcontroller serves as the heart of the build, with its high clock rate and dual cores making it a highly capable choice for the job. Audio from a microphone is amplified and pumped into the ESP32’s analog input. Core 0 on the ESP32 then runs a Fast Fourier Transform on the input audio in order to determine the energy in each frequency band. The results of this FFT are then passed to Core 1, which is used to calculate the required animations and pipe them out to a series of WS2812B LEDs.
Where this build really shines, though, is in the actual construction. Big chunks of acrylic serve as diffusers for the LEDs which light up each segment of the spectrum display. Combine the big pixel size with a nice smooth 30 Hz refresh rate on the LEDs, and the result is a rather large spectrum analyzer that really does look the business.
We’ve seen some similar builds over the years, too
. Video after the break. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472985",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2022-05-14T04:09:34",
"content": "Nice music for once but a test tone sweep or something would be nice. I can’t tell is it’s live or not. Most importantly if the time/freq base is linear or octave.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": ... | 1,760,372,695.00315 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/13/round-lcds-put-to-work-in-rack-mount-gauge-cluster/ | Round LCDs Put To Work In Rack Mount Gauge Cluster | Tom Nardi | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Parts"
] | [
"Circular LCD",
"lcd",
"midi",
"rack mount",
"round LCD"
] | Like many of you, we’re intrigued by the possibilities offered by the availability of affordable round LCD panels. But beyond the smartwatches they were designed for, it’s not always easy to come up with an appropriate application for such non-traditional displays. Digital “steam gauges” are one of the first ideas that come to mind, so it’s
perhaps no surprise that’s the direction [Tom Dowad] took his project
. But rather than just one or two gauges, he decided to go all out and put eight of them in a 1U rack mountable unit.
What do you need eight faux-analog gauges for? Beats us, but that’s not our department. Now [Tom] has a whole row of indicators that can be used to show whatever it is he likes to keep an eye on. The fact that the device is actually controlled via MIDI may provide us a clue that there’s a musical component at play (no pun intended), but then, it wouldn’t be the first time we’d seen MIDI used simply as a convenient and well supported way of synchronizing gadgets.
Beyond the eight 240 x 240 pixel panels, the unit features a Teensy 4.0, some level shifters, and a 74HC138 which is used to select which display the microcontroller is to communicate with. On the software side he’s using the Arduino environment with some PNG decompression routines lifted from [Larry Bank] and graphics code from [moononournation]. The background image of the gauge is apparently a licensed stock photo, which might seem a bit extravagant, but we can’t deny the final result looks very realistic.
Just last year we
covered a primer on working with round LCDs
, and we’ve already seen some
enterprising hackers using them in custom smartwatches
. Whether you’re suffering from aichmophobia, or just sick of being limited to the same boring displays in your gadgets, it’s exciting to see the community embracing this new technology. | 25 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472874",
"author": "fiddlingjunky",
"timestamp": "2022-05-13T20:07:58",
"content": "Would be helpful for an at-a-glance rack health monitor. Display max service uptime, rack ambient temp, CPU temp, RAM util, network util and CPU util for all the machines in the rack (would need fid... | 1,760,372,695.208063 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/13/absolute-encoder-teardown/ | Absolute Encoder Teardown | Al Williams | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"encoder",
"weigand"
] | According to [Lee Teschler], the classic representation of encoders showing code rings is out of date. His post says that
most industrial absolute encoders use a special magnetic sensor
known as a Wiegand wire to control costs. To demonstrate he does a teardown of an encoder made by Nidec Avtron Automation, and if you’ve ever wondered what’s inside something like this, you enjoy the post.
This is a large industrial unit and when you open it up, you’ll get a surprise. Most of the inside is empty! There is a very small encoder inside. The main body protects the inside and holds the large bearings. The real encoder looks more like a toy car motor than anything else.
The inner can is nearly empty, too. But it does have the part we are interested in. There’s a Melexis Hall effect sensor The
Weigand
wire is a special magnetic wire with an outer sheath that is resistant to having its magnetic field reversed and an inner core that isn’t. Until an applied magnetic field reaches a certain strength, the wire will stay magnetized in one direction. When the field crosses the threshold, the entire wire changes magnetic polarity rapidly. The effect is independent of the rate of change of the applied magnetic field.
In other words, like old core memory, the wire has strong magnetic hysteresis. Between pulses from the Weigand wire and information from the Hall effect sensor, you can accurately determine the position of the shaft.
It is always amazing to us how many modern pieces of gear are now mostly empty with the size of the device being driven by physical constraints and not the electronics within. | 22 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472843",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2022-05-13T18:47:53",
"content": "Not quite grasping the whole process, so we’ve got what, an electric Nun counting magnetic rosary beads so she knows where she is in her vespers?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies... | 1,760,372,695.060459 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/13/nvidia-releases-drivers-with-openness-flavor/ | NVIDIA Releases Drivers With Openness Flavor | Arya Voronova | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"News",
"Slider"
] | [
"firmware",
"gpu",
"GPUs",
"NVIDIA",
"open source software",
"software"
] | This year, we’ve already seen sizeable
leaks of NVIDIA source code,
and a release of open-source drivers
for NVIDIA Tegra.
It seems NVIDIA decided to amp it up, and just released
open-source GPU kernel modules
for Linux. The
GitHub link
named
open-gpu-kernel-modules
has people rejoicing, and we are already testing the code out, making memes and speculating about the future. This driver is currently claimed to be experimental, only “production-ready” for datacenter cards – but you can already try it out!
The Driver’s Present State
Of course, there’s nuance. This is new code, and unrelated to the well-known proprietary driver. It will only work on cards starting from RTX 2000 and Quadro RTX series (aka Turing and onward). The good news is that performance is
comparable to the closed-source driver,
even at this point! A peculiarity of this project – a good portion of features that AMD and Intel drivers implement in Linux kernel are, instead,
provided by a binary blob from inside the GPU.
This blob runs on the GSP, which is a RISC-V core that’s only available on Turing GPUs and younger – hence the series limitation. Now, every GPU loads a piece of firmware, but
this one’s hefty!
Barring that, this driver already provides more coherent integration into the Linux kernel, with massive benefits that will only increase going forward. Not everything’s open yet – NVIDIA’s userspace libraries and OpenGL, Vulkan, OpenCL and CUDA drivers remain closed, for now. Same goes for the old NVIDIA proprietary driver that, I’d guess, would be left to rot – fitting, as “leaving to rot” is what that driver has previously done to generations of old but perfectly usable cards.
The Future Potential
This driver’s upstreaming will be a gigantic effort for sure, but that is definitely the goal, and the benefits will also be sizeable. Even as-is, this driver has way more potential. Not unlike a British policeman, the Linux kernel checks the license of every kernel module it loads, and limits the APIs it can use if it isn’t GPL-licensed – which the previous NVIDIA driver wasn’t, as its open parts were essentially a thin layer between the kernel and the binary drivers, and thus not GPL-licenseable. Because this driver
is MIT/GPL licensed,
they now have a larger set of interfaces at their disposal, and could integrate it better into the Linux ecosystem instead of having a set of proprietary tools.
Now with 65% more driver, per driver!
Debugging abilities, security, and overall integration potential should improve. In addition to that, there’s a slew of new possibilities opened. For a start, it definitely opens the door for porting the driver to other OSes like FreeBSD and OpenBSD, and
could even help libre computing.
NVIDIA GPU support on ARM will become easier in the future, and we could see more
cool efforts
to take advantage of what GPUs help us with when paired with an ARM SBC, from exciting videogames to powerful machine learning.
The Red Hat release
says there’s more to come in terms of integrating NVIDIA products into the Linux ecosystem properly, no stones unturned.
You will generally see everyone hail this, for good reasons. The tradition is that we celebrate such radical moves, even if imperfect, from big companies – and rightfully so, given the benefits I just listed, and the future potential. As we see more such moves from big players, we will have a lot of things to rejoice about, and a myriad of problems will be left in the past. However, when it comes to openness for what we value it, the situation gets kind of weird, and hard to grapple with.
Wait, What Does Openness Mean?
Openness helps us add features we need, fix problems we encounter, learn new things from others’ work and explore the limits, as we interact with technology that defines more and more of our lives. If all the exciting sci-fi we read as kids is to be believed, indeed, we are meant to work in tandem with technology. This driver is, in many ways, not the kind of openness that helps our hardware help us, but it certainly checks many boxes for what we perceive as “open”. How did we get here?
It’s well-known that opening every single part of the code is not what large companies do – you gotta hide the DRM bits and the patent violations somewhere. Here, a lot of the code that used to reside in the proprietary driver now runs on a different CPU instead, and is as intransparent as before. No driver relies as much on binary blob code as this one, and yet only semi-ironically, it’s not that far from where it
could technically get RYF-certified.
It’s just that the objectionable binary blobs are now “firmware” instead of “software”.
Something is amiss if this is considered more open than Novena
The RYF
(Respects Your Freedom)
certification from the Free Software Foundation, while well-intentioned, has lately
drawn heat
for being counterproductive to its goals and making hardware
more complex without need,
and even the Libreboot project leader says that its principles
leave to be desired.
We have been implicitly taking RYF certification as the openness guideline to strive towards, but the
Novena laptop chose to not adhere
to it and is certainly
better off.
We have a lot to learn from RYF, and it’s quite clear that
we need more help.
From here – what do we take as “open”? And who can help us keep track of what “open” is – specifically, the kind of openness that moves us towards a more utopian, yet realistic world where our relationship with technology is healthy and loving? Some guidelines and principles help us check whether we are staying on the right path – and the world has changed enough that old ideas don’t always apply, just like with
the cloud-hosted software loophole
that proves to be
tricky to resolve.
But still, a lot more code just got opened, and this is a win on some fronts. At the same time, we won’t get where we want to be if other companies decide to stick to this example, and as hackers, we won’t achieve many of the groundbreaking things that you will see us reach with open-source tools in our hands. And, if we don’t exercise caution, we might confuse this for the kind of openness that we all come here to learn from. So it’s a mixed bag.
Still Haunting Our Past A Bit
As mentioned, this driver is for 2000 RTX series and beyond. Old cards are still limited to either the proprietary driver or Nouveau – which has a history of being hamstrung by NVIDIA. Case in point: in recent years, NVIDIA has
reimplemented vital features like clock control
in a way only accessible through a
signed firmware shim with closed API that’s tricky to reverse engineer,
and has been uncooperative ever since – which has
hurt the Nouveau project
with no remedy in sight. Unlike with AMD helping overhaul code for the cards released before their open driver dropped, this problem is to stay.
From here, Nouveau will live on, however. In part, it will still be usable for older cards that aren’t going anywhere, and in part, it seems that it could help replace the aforementioned userspace libraries that remain closed-source. The
official NVIDIA release page
says it’s not impossible that Nouveau efforts and the NVIDIA open driver efforts could be merged into one, a victory for all, even if a tad bittersweet.
Due to shortages, you might not get a GPU to run this driver on anyway. That said, we will recover from the shortages and the mining-induced craze, and prices will drop to the point where our systems will work better – maybe not your MX150-equipped laptop, but certainly a whole lot of powerful systems we are yet to build. NVIDIA is not yet where AMD and Intel stand, but they’re getting there.
[
Tux penguin image
© Larry Ewing, coincidentally remixed using GIMP.] | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472818",
"author": "Adrian Stannard",
"timestamp": "2022-05-13T17:29:26",
"content": "Anybody still use Tegra? Maybe they should’ve done it 5 years ago when there was a chance it might mean something.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,372,695.136831 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/13/hackaday-podcast-168-math-flattens-spheres-fpgas-emulate-arcades-and-we-cant-shake-polaroid-pictures/ | Hackaday Podcast 168: Math Flattens Spheres, FPGAs Emulate Arcades, And We Can’t Shake Polaroid Pictures | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney as they review the top hacks for the week. It was a real retro-fest this time, with a C64 built from (mostly) new parts, an Altoids Altair, and learning FPGAs via classic video games. We also looked at LCD sniffing to capture data from old devices, reimagined the resistor color code, revisited the magic of Polaroid instant cameras, and took a trip down television’s memory lane. But it wasn’t all old stuff — there’s flat-packing a sphere with math, spraying a fine finish on 3D printed parts, a DRM-free label printer, and a look at what’s inside that smartphone in your pocket — including some really weird optics.
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments below!
Direct Download link
.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 167 Show Notes:
News This Week:
We couldn’t come up with anything. But at times like these, no news is good news!
What’s that Sound?
Have a listen to the secret sound in this week’s episode. If you can figure out what device it comes from, or even if you just want to take a wild guess,
enter here
!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Will MiSTer Fool You Into Learning FPGAs?
A (Nearly All) New Commodore 64
Commodore C64: The Most Popular Home Computer Ever Turns 40
This Spherical Lamp’s Pieces Ship Flat, Thanks To Math
Keenan Crane’s
surface cutting paper
. (And the
rest of his research
.)
All The Sticky Labels You Could Ever Need: No DRM, Just Masking Tape
Hershey Fonts: Not Chocolate, The Origin Of Vector Lettering
Theory, Practice, And Ducted Fans
Retrotechtacular: How Television Worked In The 1950s
Reddy Kilowatt
, the unofficial “Retrotechtacular” mascot
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Exporting Data From Old Gear Through LCD Sniffing
Bee Motion Combines ESP32 With PIR Sensor And USB-C
Flexures Make This Six-DOF Positioner Accurate To The Micron Level
Dan’s Picks:
Re-imagining The Resistor Color Code Cheat Sheet
Altaid 8800 Puts A Front Panel In Your Pocket
Altair 8800 Again Project
3D Print Finishing By Spraying Glazing Putty
UV Resin Perfects 3D Print, But Not How You Think
Can’t-Miss Articles:
How A Smartphone Is Made, In Eight “Easy” Blocks
Watch A Complete Reflector Telescope Machined From A Single Block Of Glass
Will We Ever Shake The Polaroid Picture?
Polaroid Instant Film, Reborn.
Is The IPhone Camera Too Smart? Or Not Smart Enough? | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472813",
"author": "Steven Monrad",
"timestamp": "2022-05-13T17:11:35",
"content": "That Polaroid article is from 2010 ? Or do you have a visual transcript of something new in the current podcast, for the hearing impaired?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": ... | 1,760,372,695.258999 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/13/open-database-shares-resin-3d-printing-settings/ | Open Database Shares Resin 3D Printing Settings | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"database",
"material database",
"resin printing"
] | 3D printing is much like CNC milling or welding or just about any physical manufacturing process, in that good results fundamentally come down to having the right settings. In an effort to aid those working in the resin printing space, [Adam Bute] has put together
a community database of resin printing settings.
The site has sections relevant to a variety of resin 3D printers, sorted by manufacturer. Those eager to find the right settings for their given resin and printer merely need to click through and look up the appropriate data. The settings are crowdsourced, provided by manufacturers, community members, and users of [Adam]’s
Maker Trainer
website.
While it’s still important to run validation tests on a resin printer to get the best results, having a community-sourced list of settings can help users get up and running much more quickly than they otherwise might. It appears that community contributions can’t directly be made yet, but we suspect such a feature is in the works.
We’ve seen similar material databases before
for melty-plastic printers
, and those have proven to be valuable to the community. We’re sure this resin database will be received in much the same way. If you know about other great resources for printing tips and tricks,
do drop us a line! | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6473252",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2022-05-14T21:39:35",
"content": "Wow, this looks deep enough to be genuinely useful. Thanks for the link!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6473298",
"author": "mainunltd",
"time... | 1,760,372,695.297605 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/13/this-week-in-security-f5-twitter-poc-certifried-and-cloudflare-pages-pwned/ | This Week In Security: F5 Twitter PoC, Certifried, And Cloudflare Pages Pwned | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"Certifried",
"Cloudflare",
"F5",
"This Week in Security"
] | F5’s BIG-IP platform has a Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability:
CVE-2022-1388
. This one is interesting, because a Proof of Concept (PoC) was quickly reverse engineered from the patch and released on Twitter, among other places.
Let's drop CVE-2022-1388 PoC
pic.twitter.com/MmyvQGL6eO
— 416e6e61 (@AnnaViolet20)
May 9, 2022
HORIZON3.ai researcher [James Horseman] wrote
an explainer that sums up the issue nicely
. User authentication is handled by multiple layers, one being a Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) module, and the other internally in a Java class. In practice this means that if the PAM module sees an
X-F5-Auth-Token
, it passes the request on to the Java code, which then validates the token to confirm it as authentic. If a request arrives at the Java service without this header, and instead the
X-Forwarded-Host
header is set to localhost, the request is accepted without authentication. The F5 authentication scheme isn’t naive, and a request without the
X-F5-Auth-Token
header gets checked by PAM, and dropped if the authentication doesn’t check out.
So where is the wiggle room that allows for a bypass? Yet another HTTP header, the
Connection
header. Normally this one only comes in two varieties,
Connection: close
and
Connection: keep-alive
. Really, this header is a hint describing the connection between the client and the edge proxy, and the contents of the Connection header is the list of other headers to be removed by a proxy. It’s essentially the list of headers that only apply to the connection over the internet.
Now, this use is a bit obscure. Various proxies support it, but apparently not everyone is familiar with this behavior, because the F5 reverse proxy did indeed honor the
Connection
header, and stripped out the
X-F5-Auth-Token
. After the PAM module processed the request, of course. The last puzzle piece is the
Host
header, which is used by the proxy to build the
X-Forwarded-Host
header.
So PAM sees the Auth header, and passes the request to the Java service without doing authorization checking. The reverse proxy sees the
Connection
header, and strips it and the Auth header out. It then rewrites the Host header into
X-Forwarded-Host
. And finally, the back-end receives the request without an Auth header, coming from localhost according to
X-Forwarded-Host
, so it accepts it without authentication. Set three custom HTTP headers, and you can skip authentication. Ouch!
Active Directory Certifried
Ah, Active Directory. This time,
it’s AD’s support for authenticating via public key certificates
. AD can hand out certificates for users and machines that are on the domain. The difference between those two is that users have a User Principal Name (UPN), and machines have a
dNSHostName
name. The UPN has a strict uniqueness requirement, but
dNSHostName
strangely has no such requirement. So could you set a machine account to have the same
dNSHostName
as the domain controller, and what happens?
After making a couple tweaks to the account, yes, you can indeed rename a machine account to match the domain controller. Request a PKI certificate for this renamed account, and you’ve suddenly got a golden ticket — the rest of the domain thinks you’re the controller. This one was fixed in the May 2022 updates.
TLStorm 2
Are you running Aruba or Avaya hardware? Time to check for firmware updates, as
Armis just released the TLStorm 2 disclosure
. It’s similar to the earlier problems found in APC battery backups. Once again, the nanoSSL library is embedded in device firmware, and there are flaws both in the library and the integration. In both brands, the flaws allow for pre-auth RCE, but thankfully these interfaces aren’t normally exposed to the open internet.
Cloudflare Pages
Researchers at Assetnote
took a look at Cloudflare Pages
, a continuous deployment platform where Cloudflare pulls code from users’ Github/Gitlab repository, runs the code on the Cloudflare infrastructure, and then hosts the results by running arbitrary build commands — surely that could go wrong somehow.
Thankfully, pages lets us specify arbitrary build commands for running the build. So naturally, our website is going to build a reverse shell.
That reverse shell worked, giving the researchers a foot in the door. They describe the process as being very much like a Capture The Flag (CTF) competition. Their first flag captured was the ability to run arbitrary commands as root inside the build environment. The build script performs a
mv
command with the build path as its argument. That’s easy, the inclusion of a semicolon makes it easy to run a command:
f;env>/tmp/bar.txt;echo
The only problem is that before running the build, the path is validated, to make sure the directory exists. Not really a problem, as the command is also a valid directory name:
mkdir -p ‘f;env>/tmp/bar.txt;echo’
That dumped the environment variables from the build, and among the data was a GitHub private key. That key was used for all the builds, meaning that it gave access to all 18290 user repositories from other Cloudflare Pages users. There’s more “flags” described in the write-up, go check it out for the rest of the story.
Cloudflare responded to the bug reports admirably
, finding evidence in their logs for the proof of concept exploitation of all the vulnerabilities reported. Once they had solid Indicators of Compromise (IoC) for each exploit, they scoured their logs for any signs of actual malicious exploitation. For all those bugs, the only hits were associated with the research. The last bug discovered, an open Kubernetes API port, didn’t have an accessible IoC, so Cloudflare sent a notification to customers that could have been exposed to the issue. Good job!
Bits and Bytes
Ransomware has claimed a novel victim,
Lincoln College in Illinois
. Just as the school was coming back after the pandemic, their systems were hit by a ransomware attack in December 2021. All essential systems were out of commission for about three months, and once restored, it became clear that the school was no longer financially sustainable. Ransomware killed a college. Let that sink in.
Trend Micro
finally
incorrectly
classified Microsoft’s browser as malware
. Multiple Trend Micro customers reported that a Microsoft Edge file,
msedge_200_percent.pak
was getting flagged as malware. The error has been corrected, and Trend Micro has published a script to help clean up potential damage from the false positive.
Cisco’s NFVIS virtualization platform has
a collection of serious problems just announced and patched
. The worst of which is a VM escape, allowing an attacker to get root access to the hypervisor. There’s also a pair of injection vulnerabilities, also quite serious. If NFVIS is part of your infrastructure, go forth and update! | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472789",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2022-05-13T15:21:14",
"content": "“Ransomware killed a college. Let that sink in.”Could be worse. Could be a hosp[ital.“Trend Micro finally incorrectly classified Microsoft’s browser as malware.”Amusing because some routers have TM built... | 1,760,372,695.345764 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/13/barely-hdmi-display-gets-a-steampunk-inspired-enclosure/ | Barely HDMI Display Gets A Steampunk-Inspired Enclosure | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"bad apple",
"brass",
"doom",
"hdmi",
"i2c",
"metalwork",
"steampunk"
] | It’s an interesting question: What does one do for a follow-up to building the world’s worst HDMI display? Simple —
stick it in a cool steampunk-inspired case
and call it a day.
That seems to have been [mitxela]’s solution, and please don’t take our assessment as a knock on either
the original build
or this follow-up. [mitxela] himself expresses a bit of wonder at the attention garnered by his “rather stupid project,” which used the I2C interface in an HDMI interface to drive a tiny monochrome OLED screen. Low refresh rate, poor resolution — it has everything you don’t want in a display, but was still a cool hack that deserved the attention it got.
The present work, which creates an enclosure for the dodgy display, is far heavier on metalworking than anything else, as the video below reveals. The display itself goes in a small box that’s machined from brass, while the HDMI plug gets a sturdy-looking brass housing that makes the more common molded plastic plug look unforgivably flimsy — hot glue notwithstanding. Connecting the two is a flexible stalk, allowing it to plug into a computer’s HDMI port and giving the user the flexibility to position the nearly useless display where it can be seen best.
But again, we may be too harsh in our judgment; while
DOOM
is basically unplayable on the tiny display, “Bad Apple!!” is quite watchable, especially when accompanied by [mitxela]’s
servo-controlled MIDI music box
. And since when has usability been a criterion for judging a hack’s coolness, anyway? | 21 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472707",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2022-05-13T11:17:05",
"content": "I hope he’s going to glue some gears on it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6472731",
"author": "Gérald",
"timestamp": "2022-05-13T1... | 1,760,372,695.535693 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/13/tetris-clock-gets-talkative-upgrade/ | TetrisClock Gets Talkative Upgrade | Lewin Day | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"tetris",
"tetris clock"
] | Tetris
is arguably one of the most popular video games of all time, and its famous bricks have become cultural icons in themselves,
as seen in this clock build from [The Electronic Engineer].
The web interface allows the various sound options to be easily configured.
The basic concept of the
Tetris
clock is that falling bricks stick together in the shape of numbers to display the time. In this case, the clock is based on the version created by [Brian Lough]
which we featured previously.
It relies on an RGB LED matrix as a display.
However, the build has had a few upgrades courtesy of [The Electronic Engineer]. With the help of an I2S audio breakout board, the clock can play sounds at various times of day. It’s currently set up with clips from various cartoons announcing lunch and coffee break times. There’s also a web interface added in for configuration purposes, and some text tickers too.
It’s fun to see a popular open project get some upgrades as others dive in to build their own version.
We’ve seen some other fun
Tetris
clocks before, too. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472761",
"author": "Criatura",
"timestamp": "2022-05-13T14:23:52",
"content": "Now that is a fun project to look at :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6473409",
"author": "The Electronic Engineer",
"timestamp": "2022-05... | 1,760,372,695.472045 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/12/monochrome-lcd-video-hacks-galore/ | Monochrome LCD Video Hacks Galore! | Dave Rowntree | [
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"dithering",
"error diffusion",
"lcd",
"LFSR",
"PDM",
"pwm"
] | [Wenting Zhang] is clearly a fan of old school STN LCD displays, and was
wondering how various older portable devices managed to drive monochrome LCDs panels with multiple grey levels
. If the display controller supports multiple bits per pixel, it can use various techniques, such as PWM, in order to produce a pseudo-grayscale image. But, what if you have a monochrome-only display controller? With a sufficiently high pixel clock, can you use software on the application side of things to flip those pixels in such a manner as to give a reasonable looking grayscale image?
Simple dithering – don’t look too close!
PDM greyscale approximation in a 1-bit display
[Wenting] goes through multiple techniques, showing the resulting image quality in a clear, systematic manner. The first idea is to use a traditional dithering technique. For each pixel, it is set to black if the grey value is below some threshold. The resulting error value, is then propagated to neighbouring pixels. This error diffusion process smears the error out over the whole display, so spatially speaking, on average the pixel values correspond roughly to the original gray values. But, the pixels themselves are still either on or off. This isn’t quite enough. The next idea is to PWM the individual pixels over multiple frames, to approximate different grey levels. But, that gives a worst case effective refresh rate of 8 Hz with a PWM period of 15 frames, at 120 fps, and that flickers. Badly. One way to mitigate that is to switch to PDM (pulse density modulation) which selects different length sequences to give the same duty cycle but at higher frequency, at least for some grey values. Slightly better, but there’s more that can be done.
Simple PWM vs lookup table mapping
The thing is, our brains do weird things with the visual signals we perceive. Regions with the same gray value, will be pulsating at the same time, and the eye will be drawn to it and perceive flickering. So, the next trick was to try to decouple nearby pixels in such regions using a LFSR sequence, which did give an noticeable improvement. The real aim was to try to play video through the LCD, so after investigating spatial dithering, [Wenting] moved over to wondering if he could also dither in time, i.e. can the error in the time sequence be smoothed out in a similar manner, to make the video look better? By using a simple noise-shaper, the video looked noticeably smoother, and practically flicker free. Great results! All in all, this is a long video to watch, but so crammed with useful tricks that it is in our opinion definitely worthy of your time.
We’re no strangers to driving retro displays with modern hardware, for example
CRTs
, and whilst we’re thinking about retro displays, how about this retro (and quite disturbing)
touch-enabled CRT from the early ’80s
?
Thanks [Philippe] for the tip! | 23 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472620",
"author": "Zehan",
"timestamp": "2022-05-13T05:35:16",
"content": "brilliant idea",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6472627",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2022-05-13T06:05:53",
"content": "Very neat. If the... | 1,760,372,695.606001 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/12/why-get-dressed-when-there-are-software-pants/ | Why Get Dressed When There Are Software Pants? | Kristina Panos | [
"Lifehacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"faux pas",
"pants",
"videoconference",
"zoom"
] | With so many of us working from home over the last two years, it’s really become apparent that people generally dislike sitting all day with pants on. Until such a utopian time when all clothing is considered unisex, and just as many men as women are kicking it in loose, flowing skirts and dresses, you may want to remember to actually wear something on your lower half, uncomfortable though pants may be. But there is another way — you could build
[Everything Is Hacked]’s pants filter
and continue to be a chaos agent. Check out the video after the break.
These pants go as wide as you please.
That’s right, whether you forego or just forget to dress yourself below the equator, the pants filter has you covered. It works like you might expect — machine learning tracks body landmarks and posture to figure out where your NSFW region is and keep it under wraps.
By default, it blurs everything below the belt, or you can draw on pants if you’re inclined to be in revealing tighty-whities and prefer more coverage. You can adjust the width of the pants to cover the covid-19 you may have put on since 2020, and even change the pants to match your shirt.
We love that [Everything Is Hacked] had the um, gumption to test the pants filter in public at what appears to be a local taco joint. After the first few rounds of weird looks, he switched to a pants moustache to save face.
Want to add even more fun to those boring video calls?
Try connecting up some vintage hardware
, or
install a pull chain to end those sessions
with a gesture that won’t get you fired. | 42 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472547",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2022-05-13T02:17:18",
"content": "“With so many of us working from home over the last two years, it’s really become apparent that people generally dislike sitting all day with pants on. ”The Scots had the right idea. Wear a kilt.",
"... | 1,760,372,696.144405 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/12/90s-ford-gets-shift-paddles-and-a-digital-dash-upgrade/ | ’90s Ford Gets Shift Paddles And A Digital Dash Upgrade | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"car",
"ford",
"ford falcon"
] | The EA Falcon took Ford’s popular Australian sedan line into the 1990s, even if it gave way to the EB Falcon by the end of 1991. Few would call it high tech, but it introduced several innovations to the platform that were very of its time. One hacker, however, has taken a humble EA Falcon and given it a set of
homebrewed modern upgrades.
The maroon EA Falcon has scored a Barra heart transplant as well as some nifty digital upgrades.
The example in question is an EA Fairmont Ghia, which featured a handful of high-tech displays in the dash cluster, which was very on trend in the late 80s and early 90s. This dash has seen much revision, however, and now features a large TFT display and a smaller OLED unit, both of which show various vital statistics for the car. The screens have been neatly hacked in, one as part of the tachometer, the other replacing the original fuel and temperature gauges. With the data displayed on the screen instead, there’s no need for the original dials.
The car is also fitted with a more modern drivetrain. The EA scored a Barra six cylinder from a BA Falcon, along with its computer-controlled
BTR 4-speed automatic transmission.
First seen on the EB model, the BTR was considered a very modern unit in the early 90s, and is readily modified for manualized shifts. In this build, a pair of 3D-printed paddle shifters have been added to the steering wheel to enable Tiptronic-like operation.
Modern fuel-injected vehicles are often ripe for hacking in this manner. Everything from Arduinos to CANBUS shields and the like can be used to open up a car’s systems and bend them to one’s own desires. We’ve seen it done time and again, with hackers creating everything from fancy sci-fi
digital dashboards
to
working active aerodynamics!
These days, armed with what you can grab off the shelf, the sky really is the limit. Video below. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472536",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2022-05-13T01:24:14",
"content": "Looks like the dash in the car from Starfighter. Great 80’s move by the way, worth a watch",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6472548",
"author"... | 1,760,372,695.788237 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/12/makerbot-and-ultimaker-to-merge-focus-on-industry/ | MakerBot And Ultimaker To Merge, Focus On Industry | Tom Nardi | [
"News"
] | [
"3d printing batteries",
"makerbot",
"stratasys",
"ultimaker"
] | Nine years ago, MakerBot was acquired by Stratasys in a deal worth slightly north of $600 million. At the time it was assumed that MakerBot’s line of relatively affordable desktop 3D printers would help Stratasys expand its reach into the hobbyist market, but in the end, the company all but disappeared from the hacker and maker scene. Not that many around these parts were sad to see them go — by abandoning the open source principles the company had been built on, MakerBot had already fallen out of the community’s favor by the time the buyout went through.
So today’s announcement that
MakerBot and Ultimaker have agreed to merge into a new 3D printing company
is a bit surprising, if for nothing else because it seemed MakerBot had transitioned into a so-called “zombie brand” some time ago. In a press conference this afternoon it was explained that the new company would actually be spun out of Stratasys, and though the American-Israeli manufacturer would still own a sizable chunk of the as of yet unnamed company, it would operate as its own independent entity.
MakerBot has been courting pro users for years.
In the press conference, MakerBot CEO Nadav Goshen and Ultimaker CEO Jürgen von Hollen explained that the plan was to maintain the company’s respective product lines, but at the same time, expand into what they referred to as an untapped “light industrial” market. By combining the technology and experience of their two companies, the merged entity would be uniquely positioned to deliver the high level of reliability and performance that customers would demand at what they estimated to be a $10,000 to $20,000 USD price point.
When MakerBot announced their new
Method 3D printer would cost $6,500 back in 2018
, it seemed clear they had their eyes on a different class of clientele. But now that the merged company is going to put their development efforts into machines with five-figure price tags, there’s no denying that the home-gamer market is officially in their rear-view mirror. That said, absolutely zero information was provided about the technology that would actually go into said printers, although given their combined commercial experience, it seems all but a given that these future machines will use some form of fused deposition modeling (FDM).
Now we’d hate to paint with too broad a brush, but we’re going to assume that the average Hackaday reader isn’t in the market for a 3D printer that costs as much as a decent used car. But there’s an excellent chance you’re interested in at least two properties that will fall under the umbrella of this new printing conglomerate: MakerBot’s Thingiverse, and Ultimaker’s Cura slicer. In the press conference it was made clear that everyone involved recognized both projects as vital outreach tools, and that part of the $62.4 million cash investment the new company is set to receive has been set aside specifically for their continued development and improvement.
We won’t beat around the bush —
Thingiverse has been an embarrassment for years
, even before they
leaked the account information of a quarter million users
because of their antiquated back-end. A modern 3D model repository
run by a company the community doesn’t openly dislike
has been on many a hacker’s wish list for some time now, but we’re not against seeing the service get turned around by a sudden influx of cash, either. We’d also be happy to see more funding go Cura’s way as well, so long as it’s not saddled with the kind of
aggressive management that’s been giving Audacity users a headache
. Here’s hoping the new company, whatever it ends up being called, doesn’t forget about the promises they’re making to the community — because we certainly won’t. | 43 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472450",
"author": "Autodrop3d (@autodrop3d)",
"timestamp": "2022-05-12T20:53:02",
"content": "This is very interesting . . .",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6472884",
"author": "0 Winners in DDD vs SSYS?",
"t... | 1,760,372,695.974035 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/12/hackaday-prize-2022-salvaged-pumps-and-hoses-make-a-neat-vacuum-pickup-tool/ | Hackaday Prize 2022: Salvaged Pumps And Hoses Make A Neat Vacuum Pickup Tool | Robin Kearey | [
"The Hackaday Prize",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize",
"pick and place",
"Vacuum pickup tool",
"vacuum pump",
"vacuum tweezers"
] | Anyone who’s ever assembled a PCB full of tiny SMD parts will have found that tweezers are not always the best tool when it comes to accurate positioning. Thin, flat components like microcontrollers can be awkward to pick up securely, while small resistors and capacitors have a tendency of snapping out of your tweezers’ grip and flying off into the sunset (or your carpet). Vacuum pickup tools can be a great help, but the most convenient models, with an electric air pump and a foot switch, can be a bit expensive. [sjm4306] shows that it doesn’t have to be that way:
he built his “VacPen” mostly from reused components
.
At the heart of the project is a little vacuum pump with a pen-like device hooked up to it through a flexible hose. The tip of the pen holds a pickup nozzle that came from a cheap manual pick and place tool. Both the pump and pen were salvaged from some gas analysis instrument that [sjm4306] tore apart a long time ago; the pen is especially convenient since it comes with a built-in brush-like filter that can trap any debris or tiny parts that might be accidentally swallowed.
The VacPen controller is housed inside a neat 3D printed enclosure that holds a custom PCB with an ATtiny microcontroller. The pump can be operated either through a foot switch, or by pressing on the touch-sensitive pad on top of the enclosure. [sjm4306] made this by soldering a wire to a copper penny and sticking it on the inside of the lid: simple, effective and cheap.
As you can see in the video embedded below, the VacPen is perfectly capable of picking up any kind of SMD component, and just as importantly, immediately releasing it at the desired moment. If you’re new to SMD technology, we can recommend
this tutorial by [Bil Herd]
that covers vacuum tweezers as well. If you’re more into automating vacuum pickup tools,
this cool robot
might be of your interest.
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472590",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2022-05-13T04:05:33",
"content": "Your project sucks! … Can I get away with saying that for once :-DLooks handy, I used to be a whizz with tweezers, but someone seems to have replaced all my tweezers with identical looking component ... | 1,760,372,695.742266 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/12/can-you-help-nasa-build-a-mars-sim-in-vr/ | Can You Help NASA Build A Mars Sim In VR? | Lewin Day | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"mars",
"mars rover",
"nasa",
"simulation",
"simulator",
"virtual reality",
"vr"
] | No matter your project or field of endeavor, simulation is a useful tool for finding out what you don’t know. In many cases, problems or issues aren’t obvious until you try and do something. Where doing that thing is expensive or difficult, a simulation can be a low-stakes way to find out some problems without huge costs or undue risks.
Going to Mars is about as difficult and expensive as it gets. Thus, it’s unsurprising that NASA relies on simulations in planning its missions to the Red Planet. Now, the space agency is working to create a Mars sim in VR for training and assessment purposes.
The best part is that you can help!
Why Simulate Mars?
Sunset on Mars, as captured by NASA’s Spirit rover in 2005. Even simple things like night and day are different on Mars compared to Earth, and could present complications to NASA’s operations. Simulation will help find that out ahead of time. Credit:
NASA, public domain
When it comes to things like rocket performance and calculating satellite trajectories, NASA is pretty well sorted when it comes to simulations. It’s got crack teams of engineers and scientists that have spent decades improving these tools for the agency.
However, when it comes to putting astronauts on the surface of Mars, NASA doesn’t really have a whole lot to go on. In future, astronauts could land on the planet, and be charged with a variety of tasks in the Martian environment. These could be as diverse as exploring on foot or on motorized conveyances, setting up permanent living facilities, or building and troubleshooting hardware to generate resources locally on the surface of Mars.
Humans have never undertaken any of these tasks before, and so it’s difficult to know what challenges could be presented when future astronauts arrive on Mars. Ideally, we’d want a pretty good idea of what things will be like before astronauts are left to their own devices on a planet that’s tens of millions of kilometers away. Getting to Mars and finding out your tools are too hard to use, or your living quarters are impractical, would be incredibly frustrating when it’s too late to do anything about it.
It’s Just Like Being There
Thus, a simulation is in order! The agency has done some of the ground work itself already, whipping up a Mars environment in Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5. Known as the Mars XR Operations Support System, the virtual environment simulates the conditions on the surface of Mars as they would be experienced by astronauts. The simulation is intended to be used with VR gear, to allow astronauts or others to feel and act as if they really are on the Red Planet.
Thus far, there’s a simulated Martian day/night cycle with the appropriate sky conditions, along with the proper value for Martian gravity. There are working rovers, too, and changing weather conditions based on our best knowledge of Martian meteorology. The simulator includes a massive 400 km² (154 mile²) of terrain to traverse based on NASA’s own research.
One of the challenge categories is “Set Up Camp.” The intention is to create a simulation of setting up a Mars camp to see what challenges this might present to astronauts. Credit:
NASA, public domain
With all that done, NASA came to a new problem. The agency’s Mars simulation is actually
too accurate.
Just like the planet itself, there isn’t actually anything to do. This is where the public comes in. NASA has created
the MarsXR Challenge
, charging the public with the job of populating the Mars simulator with useful content. Naturally, the simulator needs to be filled with realistic assets and scenarios in order to be an effective training and investigative aid for NASA and its astronauts.
Seb Loze, Unreal Engine business director for simulations at Epic Games, notes the opportunity this affords those that get involved.
“
Creators can use Unreal Engine to build realistic simulation scenarios to help prepare NASA for future missions, whether that’s to the moon or to Mars,” said Loze, adding “Whether you’re a game designer, architect, hobbyist or rocket scientist, anyone can build with UE5, and we can’t wait to see the immersive simulations the community comes up with.”
Astronauts famously used the Lunar Roving Vehicle to get around the Moon on later Apollo missions. We’re sure few would pass up the chance to drive something similar on the surface of Mars. Credit:
NASA, public domain
The competition is being hosted on crowdsourcing platform HeroX, which helps clients share projects with the broader public to find useful and unique solutions. As per
the challenge website,
there are five separate categories for competitors to get involved with. Four are task-oriented categories, including Set Up Camp, Scientific Research, Maintenance, and Exploration. The final category, Blow Our Minds, is an invitation for the creative and technically-adept to make something that simply impresses the judges beyond all expectation.
The challenge comes with a prize purse of $70,000, which will be shared across 20 individual prizes. Each category has four prizes, with the overall winner in each scoring $6,000 for their work. There’s no need to limit yourself or your team, though. NASA welcomes multiple entries in multiple categories, and entrants are eligible for multiple prizes too.
You might have a great idea for a Martian medical simulation, or perhaps an exciting mission where astronauts drive out far into the red desert on something approximating the Lunar Roving Vehicle. Maybe you’d like to simulate a recovery operation
to bring back the brave Spirit rover
, which served with distinction and deserves to come home.
Whatever your ideas are, the submission deadline is July 27, 2022. Whip up an idea, put together your crew, and get to it! | 40 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472387",
"author": "WereCatf",
"timestamp": "2022-05-12T17:25:38",
"content": "How’s this supposed to work? It’s very much unlikely most people will know enough about physics on Mars to be able to come up with realistic simulations, so it’ll really just amount to being a game, then... | 1,760,372,696.064739 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/12/how-the-roland-808-cowbell-worked/ | How The Roland 808 Cowbell Worked | Jenny List | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"drum machine",
"Roland 808",
"Roland TR-808",
"synthesiser"
] | Every generation has an instrument which defines its sound, and for those whose formative musical years lie in the 1980s, a very strong contender to the crown is the Roland TR-808 percussion synthesizer. Its sounds can be recognized across a slew of hits from that era and every decade since, and though the original instrument wasn’t a commercial success it remains accessible through sample packs, emulations, and clones. The 808 was an all-analogue device that didn’t use samples, thus [Mark Longstaff-Tyrrell]
has been able to reproduce its distinctive cowbell sound with reference to some of the original circuitry
.
It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to find that the circuit is refreshingly simple. The trigger pulse is converted into an envelope which controls a pair of oscillators. The mixed output passes through a bandpass filter to create the distinctive sound on the output which you can hear in the video below the break. The circuit is recreated on a breadboard with the only concession to modernity being a microcontroller taking the place of the Schmitt trigger oscillators in the original.
Altogether it provides a fascinating insight into the synthesis behind a classic sound, and gives us an increased appreciation for the design skills of those Roland engineers who created it. We’ve looked at the 808 before a few times, including an explanation of
the famous faulty transistors which contributed to its sound
.
Header image: Brandon Daniel derivative work: Clusternote,
CC BY-SA 2.0
. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472344",
"author": "KDawg",
"timestamp": "2022-05-12T15:51:13",
"content": "I don’t care how it works I only know I need more cowbell!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6472370",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "2022-0... | 1,760,372,696.187438 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/12/with-rocket-labs-daring-midair-catch-reusable-rockets-go-mainstream/ | With Rocket Lab’s Daring Midair Catch, Reusable Rockets Go Mainstream | Tom Nardi | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"News",
"Original Art",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"electron",
"Falcon 9",
"reusability",
"reuse",
"Rocket Lab",
"SpaceX"
] | We’ve all marveled at the videos of SpaceX rockets returning to their point of origin and landing on their spindly deployable legs, looking for all the world like something pulled from a 1950s science fiction film. On countless occasions founder Elon Musk and president Gwynne Shotwell have extolled the virtues of reusable rockets, such as lower operating cost and the higher reliability that comes with each booster having a flight heritage. At this point, even NASA feels confident enough to fly their missions and astronauts on reused SpaceX hardware.
Even so, SpaceX’s reusability program has remained an outlier, as all other launch providers have stayed the course and continue to offer only expendable booster rockets. Competitors such as United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin have teased varying degrees of reusability for their future vehicles, but to date have nothing to show for it beyond some flashy computer-generated imagery. All the while SpaceX continues to streamline their process, reducing turnaround time and refurbishment costs with each successful reuse of a Falcon 9 booster.
But that changed earlier this month, when a
helicopter successfully caught one of Rocket Lab’s Electron boosters in midair
as it fell back down to Earth under a parachute. While calling the two companies outright competitors might be a stretch given the relative sizes and capabilities of their boosters, SpaceX finally has a sparing partner when it comes to the science of reusability. The
Falcon 9 has already smashed the Space Shuttle’s record turnaround time
, but perhaps Rocket Lab will be the first to achieve Elon Musk’s stated goal of re-flying a rocket within 24 hours of its recovery.
Catch and Release
Unfortunately, while the helicopter was able to
catch
the booster as it returned to Earth, it wasn’t able to hold onto it for long. The pilots noted that the behavior of the captured rocket at the end of the tether was inconsistent with that of the mass simulator they had used during the practice runs, and rather than risk a deadly situation, they made the decision to cut it loose.
It’s still not clear why the flight characteristics of the real rocket were different, but one theory is that its fuel and oxidizer tanks were not fully empty, and the sloshing liquid introduced unexpected oscillations. You might think the answer would be to simply run the first stage’s nine Rutherford rocket engines until all propellants were expended, but allowing the turbopumps to run dry would likely lead to significant internal damage, if not complete destruction.
Should it be determined that unburned propellants were to blame, the solution would likely be to vent the fuel and oxidizer tanks into the upper atmosphere after main engine cutoff (MECO) and stage separation at an altitude of approximately 75 kilometers (46 miles); thus ensuring the rocket is empty and in a safe configuration long before the helicopter enters the capture area.
Even though the helicopter wasn’t able to bring the rocket back down to the ground safely, all was not lost. As luck would have it, the booster’s parachute reinflated after it was released from the tether, and it ultimately made a controlled splash down in the ocean. While it obviously had a far rougher ride than anticipated, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck has hinted that the rocket may still be in good enough condition to reuse. Pictures he tweeted from the recovery ship
appear to show that the rocket and its valuable engines
are in remarkably good shape, though a thorough internal examination will naturally be required before any decisions can be made about using the hardware on a future flight.
Faster isn’t Always Cheaper
It’s worth noting that Rocket Lab’s rationale for attempting to reuse their Electron rockets isn’t quite in line with that of SpaceX. Being a far smaller and cheaper rocket than the Falcon 9, the cost of recovery, especially this early in the program, likely exceeds the value of the hardware itself. But that’s not the point.
The unique construction of the Electron
, with its carbon composite fuselage and 3D printed engines, means it currently takes a month to produce each rocket. When your competitors are flying every two weeks, that’s simply not good enough.
Electron and Falcon 9 to Scale
As Peter Beck explained when he
first announced the company’s plan to make Electron reusable in 2019
, the hope is that a recovered rocket can be refurbished in less time than it takes to construct a new one. Even if the recovery and refurbishment ends up being more expensive, in the long-term, the increased launch cadence will be better for Rocket Lab’s bottom line. By reusing each rocket just once, they will double the number of missions they can fly in a year.
While SpaceX has used reusability to slash their operating costs, Rocket Lab sees it as an alternative to setting up a second Electron production line. Whether it will be as successful for them as it has been for SpaceX is yet to be seen, but one thing is clear: single-use rockets are becoming an increasingly quaint concept among this new breed of aerospace companies. | 34 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472312",
"author": "Rumble_in_the_Jungle",
"timestamp": "2022-05-12T14:20:24",
"content": "First thought after seeing main art picture – someone figured out to launch missile between helicopter blades. As in WWI machine gun between aircraft propellers ;D",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,696.259478 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/12/is-esp8266-5-v-tolerant-this-curve-tracer-says-yes/ | Is ESP8266 5 V Tolerant? This Curve Tracer Says Yes! | Arya Voronova | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"5V tolerant",
"ESP-01",
"ESP8266",
"testing equipment"
] | Some people state that ESP8266 is tolerant of 5 V logic levels on its GPIOs, while others vehemently disagree, pointing at the datasheet-stated 3.6 V maximum. Datasheets aren’t source code for compiling the chip, however, and aren’t universally correct and complete either. [Avian] decided to
dig deeper into the claims,
conduct an experiment with an actual ESP8266 chip, then share the results for all of us.
For the experiment, he used a curve tracer – a device capable of producing a wide range of voltages and measuring the current being consumed, then plotting the voltage-to-current relationship. This helps characterize all sorts of variables, from diode breakdown voltages to transistor characteristics. The curve tracer he uses is a capable and professional-looking
DIY build of his,
and arguably, deserves a separate write-up!
The reasoning behind [Avian]’s experiment is simple – if the pin, set to an input, starts consuming a higher amount of current at a certain voltage threshold, then there’s gotta be some chip-internal structure, intended or unintended, that would be damaged at this voltage. Curve tracer in hand, he set up an ESP-01 module to set a GPIO to input, and started increasing the voltage.
The tests have shown that, while there’s a reverse biased ESD diode from GPIO pins to ground, there don’t seem to be diodes from the GPIO pin to the VCC rail – and those are the primary concern for 5 V tolerance. There does seem to be something functionally akin to a 6 V Zener diode internally, which should clamp the voltage before it gets too way high for the chip to handle. None of that should be a problem for 5 V compatibility, and it seems fair to interpret this as a confirmation of 5 V tolerance until someone shows otherwise.
[Avian] didn’t want to destroy an ESP8266, so the experiment was conducted with a 1 K series resistor between the curve tracer and the input – which might have biased the results a bit. On the other hand, adding series resistors in front of your inputs is an overall underappreciated practice, 5 V or otherwise. He also points out that, while the pins don’t seem to be adversely impacted by the higher input voltage, the bootloader might set some of them to 3.3 V outputs on boot-up, shorting your 5 V source to your 3.3 V rail — worth keeping in mind!
[Avian]’s research journeys are fun to follow, and we recommend you check
his blog
out; last time, we covered his research of
an innocent-looking 3.5 mm jack
hiding a devious audio compensation circuit. Since we
first covered the ESP8266
in 2014, we’ve been researching all the things it’s really capable of, and we brought up the topic of GPIO 5 V compatibility
way back in 2016
– it’s reassuring to finally put this question to rest!
We thank [Adrian] for sharing this with us! | 44 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472234",
"author": "Szaja",
"timestamp": "2022-05-12T11:05:17",
"content": "If in doubt – ask Hackaday:https://hackaday.com/2016/07/28/ask-hackaday-is-the-esp8266-5v-tolerant/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6472242",
... | 1,760,372,696.342507 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/12/making-a-concrete-pinhole-camera/ | Making A Concrete Pinhole Camera | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"pinhole camera"
] | A pinhole camera is a simple device that can be built out of virtually any simple closed chamber, and is a great way to learn about the basic principles of photography. [amuu] has created a version
that can be readily made out of concrete
, of all materials!
The photos captured by the camera featured some artifacts from light leaks and grit, but the results are enjoyable for their lo-fi, homebrew aesthetic!
The build starts with the creation of a mold for the concrete, using laminated sheets of foam. The foam is assembled with cut-up pieces of a ballpoint pen serving as cores in the mold. This provides a space for the film winders in the final product. The concrete is then mixed and poured into the mold, and allowed to set. Tapping or vibrating the mold is key to getting all the air bubbles out of the mixture.
Once set, the foam is mechanically removed from the concrete and the camera can be finished off. The internals are given a lick of black paint to improve the camera’s light-tightness. The shutter, pinhole, and film winder are then also fitted to allow the camera to function.
[amuu]’s first attempt to take photos with the camera lead to some results that were pleasingly lo-fi. There are overscan issues on the film and some other artifacts, but overall, the results are esoteric and fun. If you’re not a fan of the concrete camera, though, you can always consider making
a 3D-printed pinhole camera instead! | 9 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472183",
"author": "Iván Stepaniuk",
"timestamp": "2022-05-12T08:18:51",
"content": "Very solid project",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6472187",
"author": "Janez",
"timestamp": "2022-05-12T08:29:22",
... | 1,760,372,696.387186 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/11/pitch-sequencer-turns-tascam-tape-deck-into-instrument/ | Pitch Sequencer Turns Tascam Tape Deck Into Instrument | Lewin Day | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"pitch shift",
"pitch shifter",
"pwm",
"Raspberry Pi Pico",
"tape",
"tape deck"
] | The cool thing about magnetic tape is that by varying the speed at which you play it back, you can vary the pitch of the output. [Issac] decided to take advantage of this,
executing a fancy digitally-controlled pitch mod on his Tascam Porta 02 tape deck.
The build uses a Raspberry Pi Pico, which employs PWM to control the speed of the tape drive’s motor. This is achieved with the use of an NPN transistor driven by the PWM output of the Pico. This allows accurate control of motor speed, and thus pitch.
With that sorted out, the project was fleshed out with an OLED screen and a rotary encoder. These allow various patches or scripts to be run on the Pico, controlling the motor speed of the tape player in various ways. With a bit of work, [Issac] was also able to create a function that converted MIDI note values into PWM values that determine various motor speeds.
The natural thing to do next was to put in a tape with a looping sample at a set pitch, and then vary it in a sequence controlled by the Pico. The 8 steps of the sequence can be manually set with the rotary control, and in future, [Issac] even plans to add a real MIDI input, allowing the system to act as a monophonic synth.
If you prefer other routes to pitch shifting shenanigans,
check out this project
. Video after the break. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472186",
"author": "GMob",
"timestamp": "2022-05-12T08:27:11",
"content": "The way less-cool thing is when the pitch variations are uncalled for. I was attempting to overdub a recording made on a Tascam PortaStudio 4-track, and found ridiculous speed variations at random points thr... | 1,760,372,696.428162 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/11/easy-network-config-for-iot-devices-with-rgbeacon/ | Easy Network Config For IoT Devices With RGBeacon | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Network Hacks"
] | [
"IoT",
"microcontroller",
"ws2812b"
] | When you’re hooking up hardware to a network, it can sometimes be a pain to figure out what IP address the device has ended up with. [Bas Pijls] often saw this problem occurring in the classroom, and set about creating a simple method for small devices to communicate their IP address and other data
with a minimum of fuss.
[Bas] specifically wanted a way to do this without adding a display to the hardware, as this would add a lot of complexity and expense to simple IoT devices. Instead, RGBeacon was created, wherin a microcontroller flashes out network information with the aid of a single RGB WS2812B LED.
In fact, all three colors of the RGB LED are used to send information to a computer via a webcam. The red channel flashes out a clock signal, the green channel represents the beginning of a byte, and the blue channel flashes to indicate bits that are high. With a little signal processing, a computer running a Javascript app in a web browser can receive information from a microcontroller flashing its LEDs via a webcam.
It’s a neat hack that should make setting up devices in [Bas]’s classes much easier. It needn’t be limited to network info, either; the code could be repurposed to let a microcontroller flash out other messages, too. It’s not dissimilar from the old
Timex Datalink
watches which used monitor flashes to communicate! | 25 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472149",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2022-05-12T04:04:45",
"content": "Three color channels?! Back in my day just one color was enough and we couldn’t see it because it was infrared.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "647217... | 1,760,372,696.494997 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/11/when-sticks-fly/ | When Sticks Fly | Dan Maloney | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"Bicopter",
"center of gravity",
"drone",
"dual rotor",
"gimbal",
"gyroscopic precession",
"Thrust vectoring",
"uav"
] | When it comes to hobby rotorcraft, it almost seems like the more rotors, the better. Quadcopters, hexacopters, and octocopters we’ve seen, and there’s probably a dodecacopter buzzing around out there somewhere. But what about going the other way? What about a rotorcraft with the minimum complement of rotors?
And thus we have
this unique “flying stick” bicopter
. [Paweł Spychalski]’s creation reminds us a little of a miniature version of the
“Flying Bedstead”
that NASA used to train the Apollo LM pilots to touch down on the Moon, and which
[Neil Armstrong] famously ejected from
after getting the craft into some of the attitudes this little machine found itself in. The bicopter is unique thanks to its fuselage of carbon fiber tube, about a meter in length, each end of which holds a rotor. The rotors rotate counter to each other for torque control, and each is mounted to a servo-controlled gimbal for thrust vectoring. The control electronics and battery are strategically mounted on the tube to place the center of gravity just about equidistant between the rotors.
But is it flyable? Yes, but just barely. The video below shows that it certainly gets off the ground, but does a lot of bouncing as it tries to find a stable attitude. [Paweł] seems to think that the gimballing servos aren’t fast enough to make the thrust-vectoring adjustments needed to keep a stick flying, and we’d have to agree.
This isn’t [Paweł]’s first foray into bicopters; he earned
“Fail of the Week” honors back in 2018
for his coaxial dualcopter. The flying stick seems to do much better in general, and kudos to him for even managing to get it off the ground. | 26 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472099",
"author": "fiddlingjunky",
"timestamp": "2022-05-11T23:04:28",
"content": "RCTestFlight did something similar. Love to see abnormal flying machines.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7mSE_ST1gs",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_... | 1,760,372,696.560401 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/11/caulking-gun-becomes-useful-press-tool-for-fuel-line-fittings/ | Caulking Gun Becomes Useful Press Tool For Fuel Line Fittings | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"car hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"press",
"press tool",
"tooling"
] | The simple caulking gun is really useful when you’re working on some bathroom repairs or squirting construction adhesives about the place. However, with a few simple mods,
it can become a great help in the mechanic’s workshop too.
It’s a great tool for cleanly pushing fittings into nylon fuel line.
This build consists of a series of 3D-printed parts that can readily be adapted to a garden-variety caulking gun. First up are a pair of fuel line clamps which are fastened together with nuts and bolts, The nylon fuel line is inserted between these, and the bolts are tightened up to hold the line firmly in place at the end of the caulking gun. The fitting to be installed into the line is then placed on the caulking gun’s plunger. It’s then a simple matter of pulling the trigger on the caulking gun to slowly press the fitting into the nylon line.
It’s a great hack which creates a useful linear press with just a few cents of PETG filament. If you find yourself doing a one-off fuel line job on a modern car, this could be just the tool you need. Parts are available on
Thingiverse
for those eager to print their own. The design is made for 3/8ths inch line, but could readily be modified or recreated to suit other diameters.
3D-printed tools can be useful in all kinds of ways, even in heavy-duty applications
like press tooling
. It often doesn’t have the same longevity of traditional metal tooling, but for small one-off jobs, the price saving is often more important than the hardiness of the tooling itself. If you’ve whipped up some great 3D-printed tools of your own,
don’t hesitate to drop us a line! | 29 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6472052",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2022-05-11T20:59:16",
"content": "There’s not much stopping you making this out of wood if you lack a 3D printer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6472061",
"author": "Phil Ba... | 1,760,372,696.644942 |
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